Robinhood CEO expects crypto contracts to make sports a minority

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said on CNBC's "Mad Money" that crypto-linked contracts are taking a disproportionate share of Robinhood's prediction-markets business. He expects sports contracts to become a minority of that business within a few years. Prediction markets, also called event contracts, let people trade yes-or-no contracts on whether events such as Federal Reserve decisions, elections or football games will occur. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates these trades as derivatives. Tenev said sports contracts served as a wedge that brought users, liquidity and interest to the business, but that the industry is expanding beyond sports. Event-contract revenue at Robinhood rose more than tenfold year over year to $156 million in the second quarter of 2026. The company described prediction markets as its fastest-growing business line while crypto-trading revenue fell. Contracts were traded 4.7 billion times in August, about 15 times the volume a year earlier. Robinhood built its event-contract hub on Kalshi, which fought and won a legal battle against the CFTC to offer election-related contracts. Robinhood also added Rothera, its CFTC-licensed joint venture with Susquehanna, which was tested during this year's World Cup. This month, Robinhood took minority equity stakes in Crypto.com and its prediction-market spinoff OG.com, adding a third partner to clear and settle trades. CME, Coinbase and decentralized platforms are also competing for event-contract traders. Crypto-native platforms such as Polymarket helped popularize the category before traditional Wall Street brokerages entered it. Tenev said Robinhood views sports and crypto contracts as part of a broader ownership strategy. He argued that people who own financial assets have a financial stake and that broader ownership could make society more stable. He also linked that view to Robinhood's 3% match on retirement contributions. Tenev said prediction markets let people monetize an idea or insight, citing a market on the Clarity Act, a bill in Congress that would determine which federal regulator oversees digital assets. Lawmakers have introduced more than 10 bills since January targeting prediction markets. One of them, the PREDICT Act, would bar members of Congress and senior officials from trading contracts tied to political events. Critics argue that placing sports and political contracts alongside retirement accounts blurs the line between investing and gambling, an issue regulators are still considering.