Robinhood Becomes Fastest-Growing Prediction Market With 12B+ Contracts in 2025
Robinhood processed over 12 billion event contracts in 2025 and acquired MIAXdx to build its own CFTC-licensed exchange, positioning it to compete directly with Kalshi and ForecastEx.
Robinhood's prediction markets hub, launched in March 2025, became the fastest-growing retail entry point to event-contract trading in the United States within its first year. The company disclosed that more than 12 billion contracts were traded on the platform in 2025 and that over one million users actively trade prediction markets. That adoption curve reflects both Robinhood's existing 26-million-strong user base and the ease of adding event contracts to a platform already used for stocks, ETFs, and crypto.
In January 2026, Robinhood acquired MIAXdx, a CFTC-licensed designated contract market (DCM). The acquisition signals that Robinhood intends to operate its own prediction market exchange rather than relying indefinitely on ForecastEx (political and economic contracts) and Kalshi (sports contracts). Analysts expect Robinhood's own exchange to go live in mid-2026, potentially offering a full suite of event contracts (sports, politics, economics, and potentially weather) from a single in-house licensed venue.
The sports contract expansion accelerated in December 2025 when Robinhood added NFL parlay and prop bet-style event contracts via its Kalshi integration, ahead of the NFL playoffs. Sports contracts are currently available in 35+ US states including the major markets of California, Texas, and Florida.
Robinhood's fee structure ($0.02/contract: $0.01 Robinhood + $0.01 exchange fee) is competitive against traditional sportsbooks but slightly more expensive than Novig's commission-free model or Kalshi's profit-only-fee structure for losing trades. With its own DCM, Robinhood could restructure its pricing to remain the most consumer-friendly option in the embedded brokerage segment.
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Recent updates
Missouri AG Sends Cease-and-Desist Letters to Six Prediction Market Operators
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued cease-and-desist letters on September 18 to six prediction market operators — Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Crypto.com, Novig, and Underdog — alleging their sports event contracts constitute unlicensed sports wagering under Missouri law. The letters give platforms 30 days to comply or obtain licenses from the Missouri Gaming Commission. Missouri is the broadest multi-platform C&D action to date, targeting all major operators simultaneously. The action arrives one day after Montana and Kalshi filed a joint stipulation in which Montana agreed to pause enforcement while Ninth Circuit en banc review is pending.
Yahoo Finance Ends Polymarket Data Partnership After Five Months
Yahoo Finance and Polymarket mutually ended their prediction market data partnership on September 18, approximately five months after the companies announced an exclusive arrangement in November 2025. The Polymarket data hub that Yahoo Finance launched in January-February 2026 was quietly taken down in April 2026. No reason was publicly disclosed. Yahoo Finance retains an advertising relationship with Polymarket. The partnership's end is a setback for Polymarket's strategy of embedding its probability data into mainstream financial media platforms.
Montana and Kalshi Reach Joint Stipulation — State Pauses Enforcement Pending Ninth Circuit En Banc
Kalshi dismissed its lawsuit against the Montana Department of Justice on September 17 after both sides filed a joint stipulation in which Montana agreed to pause all enforcement, investigations, and cease-and-desist proceedings against Kalshi's event contracts. The pause lasts until the Ninth Circuit either denies en banc review of the August 28 ruling or issues an en banc decision. Montana must give Kalshi 30 days written notice before resuming any enforcement action after that window closes. The agreement mirrors the Robinhood-Michigan stipulation from September 4 and reinforces a pattern of states reaching negotiated compliance pauses while the appellate process plays out.