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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IG Group Buys Underdog for $1.3 Billion — The First Major Foreign Acquisition of a US Prediction Market Exchange
IG Group, the UK-listed financial trading platform, has agreed to acquire Underdog for approximately $1.3 billion — 13 days after Underdog launched its own CFTC-licensed exchange. The deal gives IG Group a US designated contract market and derivatives clearing organization, making it the first international financial firm to acquire a licensed US prediction market venue. Underdog is currently the third-largest US prediction market by regulated notional volume, behind Kalshi and Robinhood.
An Independent Integrity Body Found 7 Betting Irregularities at the World Cup. FIFA Said There Were None. The Clash Centers on Polymarket.
The Group of Copenhagen — the Council of Europe's independent match manipulation watchdog — raised seven yellow notices for potential betting irregularities during the 2026 World Cup, in direct contradiction to FIFA's own Integrity Task Force, which published an all-clear on Tuesday. The most troubling finding involves Polymarket: the platform opened a market on July 2 asking whether Folarin Balogun would play against Belgium — the same day Balogun received a red card and three days before FIFA publicly confirmed his ban was suspended. No equivalent markets were opened for any of the other 14 red cards shown at the tournament.
After Yesterday's Hearing, Congress Looks Ready to Legislate on Prediction Markets — Not Just Watch
The House Agriculture Subcommittee held a two-hour hearing on July 22 examining sports event contracts, with witnesses from the American Gaming Association, tribal gaming, and both sides of the CFTC authority debate. Subcommittee Chair Dusty Johnson said Congress 'cannot afford to be silent' and signaled there is 'work for them to do.' Witnesses urged members to advance H.R. 7840, the Event Contract Enforcement Act, which would ban sports event contracts outright. The hearing adds a third front to a fight that is already being waged simultaneously in ten state courts and at the CFTC.