Vlad Tenev, Robinhood’s CEO, said crypto-linked prediction market contracts are already capturing a disproportionate share of his platform’s event-contract business and expects sports betting to become the minority within years.
“We’re already seeing other categories like crypto taking a disproportionate share,” Tenev said. “I think within a few years, sports will actually be in the minority, similar to active trading at large.”
The shift reflects explosive growth in Robinhood’s event-contract hub. The platform traded 4.7 billion contracts in August 2026, a 15-fold increase from August 2025. Event-contract revenue hit $156 million in Q2 2026, more than tenfold year-over-year growth.
Robinhood built its event-contract offering on three partners. Kalshi, a prediction market exchange, won a legal battle against the CFTC to offer election-related contracts. Rothera, Robinhood’s own CFTC-licensed joint venture with trading firm Susquehanna, was tested during this year’s World Cup. In September 2026, Robinhood took minority equity stakes in Crypto.com and its prediction-market spinoff OG.com to add a third clearing partner.
Event contracts allow traders to buy and sell yes-or-no bets on future events as derivatives regulated by the CFTC, rather than through traditional sportsbooks. Tenev framed the asset class as a tool for monetizing insight and opinion.
“You can directly, with prediction markets, monetize an idea or an insight,” Tenev said. “If you have a particular view on crypto market structure legislation, the Clarity Act, we have a market on that.”
Competitors including CME, Coinbase, and the decentralized platform Polymarket also operate in the event-contract space. Polymarket, a crypto-native platform, helped popularize event contracts before Wall Street brokerages entered the market.
Robinhood’s event-contract surge occurred even as crypto trading revenue at the platform fell. Tenev emphasized ownership as a broader philosophy. “We believe that ownership is essential, not just because if people are owners, they have skin in the game, they can benefit financially, but also a society where more people own high quality financial assets is inherently a more stable society,” he said.
Lawmakers have introduced 10+ bills since January targeting prediction markets, including the PREDICT Act, which would ban Congress members and senior officials from trading political-event contracts. The regulatory landscape remains contested as Washington sorts through concerns about allowing bets on a broad range of events.
