By Hannah Erin Lang
Robinhood is launching a prediction-markets hub that will allow users to bet on basketball tournaments and coming interest-rate moves from the Federal Reserve.
The brokerage is partnering with prediction-market startup Kalshi to offer the event contracts through Robinhood's app. Event contracts are a type of futures contract that let traders wager on the outcome of economic, political or cultural events. The prices of the contracts-which typically range from zero to $1-reflect traders' assessments of the likelihood of each result.
Robinhood users will be able to trade contracts on the upper bound of what the target federal-funds rate will be in May. The Fed is set to unveil its latest interest-rate decision this week, and has another meeting set for May 6-7. Users will also be able to bet on coming men's and women's college-basketball tournaments. The contracts start rolling out to eligible users today.
Robinhood made its first foray into the world of event contracts and prediction markets last fall, when it let users bet on the outcome of the presidential election.
In February, the brokerage launched contracts tied to the Super Bowl, but yanked the offering after pushback from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. CFTC-regulated prediction markets are barred from listing contracts that involve "gaming" and are against the public interest - but the definition of "gaming" isn't spelled out in the law.
"We're excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations," JB Mackenzie, Robinhood's vice president and general manager of futures and international, said in a statement.
Robinhood said the company has been in close contact with the CFTC over the last several weeks and will continue to work with the regulator "to promote innovation in the futures, derivatives and crypto markets."
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March 17, 2025 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)
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