Robinhood Adds Prediction Markets Hub to Retail Trading App

Robinhood has added a prediction markets hub to its app, allowing users to trade on the outcomes of events.

The first contracts, which started rolling out Monday (March 17), cover what the upper bound of the target Fed funds rate will be in May and who will win the upcoming men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments, the company said in a Monday press release.

Robinhood’s prediction markets hub and the corresponding contracts will initially be available in the U.S. through Kalshi, an exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to the release.

The company said in the release that it is also working with the CFTC on projects having to do with the futures, derivatives and crypto markets.

“We believe in the power of prediction markets and think they play an important role at the intersection of news, economics, politics, sports and culture,” JB Mackenzie, vice president and general manager of futures and international at Robinhood, said in the release. “We’re excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in the prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations.”

Robinhood said Feb. 12 that its number of accounts reached 26.2 million in the fourth quarter while its transaction based top lines were $672 million in the period, which was up 236% from the same period in 2023 and up 111% from the third quarter.

In October, the company said it aimed to increase wallet share of existing investors while attracting a broader group to its retail trading platform.

“In the past month, we introduced Robinhood Legend, our new desktop offering, and announced index options, futures, and a realized profit and loss tool are coming soon,” Robinhood CEO and Co-Founder Vlad Tenev said during an October earnings call. “And just this week, we launched our Presidential Election Market. We have a ton of momentum, and we’re just getting started.”

Crypto.com said in December that it introduced a sports event trading product that lets American users of Crypto.com and the Crypto.com app take part in and trade their own prediction on the outcome of sporting events.