Robinhood’s Game-Changing Move: Football Prediction Markets Launch as Sports Betting Expansion Accelerates

Robinhood just upped the ante—big time. The trading platform's diving headfirst into football prediction markets, expanding its sports betting footprint when traditional finance can't decide if crypto's a scam or salvation.

From Zero to Sportsbook Hero

They're leveraging that slick UI that made meme stocks famous—now applying it to touchdown spreads and over/unders. No more clunky legacy sportsbooks; this is fintech meeting Friday night lights.

Why This Isn't Your Grandpa's Betting Slip

Real-time odds, instant settlements (thanks, blockchain adjacency), and that addictive Robinhood gamification. They're not just capturing gamblers—they're onboarding the next generation of degens who think 'point spread' is cooler than dividends.

Wall Street's watching—and sweating. Another vertical where traditional brokers are playing catch-up while Robinhood eats their lunch. Because nothing says 'financial innovation' like letting users bet their rent money on third-down conversions.

A Growing Prediction Markets Hub

Robinhood announced today the launch of pro and college football prediction markets within the Robinhood app.

The new feature allows customers to trade on the outcomes of major games, including all professional regular season matchups and games involving Power 4 and independent college football teams.

“Football is far and away the most popular sport in America. Adding pro and college football to our prediction markets hub is a no-brainer for us as we aim to make Robinhood a one-stop shop for all your investing and trading needs,” said JB Mackenzie, VP & GM of Futures and International at Robinhood, in a press release. 

Robinhood Derivatives, LLC will offer these new contracts through KalshiEX LLC, a federally regulated exchange.

Robinhood will soon launch pro and college football Prediction Markets directly within the Robinhood app, per $HOOD release; PMs will include all NFL and NCAA Power 4 conference regular season games; launch comes days after Kalshi announces its own expanded football PM offerings

The announcement expands on Robinhood’s existing prediction market offerings, which have already seen over 2 billion contracts traded. Unlike traditional sports betting, these are structured as financial markets where buyers and sellers set the prices, and users can manage their positions throughout a game.

The new offerings will become fully available in the coming days. Robinhood will offer contracts for the first two weeks of the professional and college seasons at launch. The company plans to add weekly matchups as the season progresses, with new games launching after the conclusion of previous weeks.

From Basketball to Football

This isn’t the first time Robinhood has offered prediction markets centered around sports. In March, the trading platform also partnered with Kalshi to offer bets on NCAA basketball tournaments.

In July, Robinhood executives unveiled that sports contracts made up a significant proportion of the company’s approximately $1 billion worth of prediction markets trading during the second quarter of 2025.

$HOOD

Robinhood Q2 stats that you may have missed:

– Doubled prediction markets volume to 2B contracts traded so far, 1B in Q2 and 10% of those being around economic predictions, the others being mainly tied to sports

– 300K Gold card holders, credit card revenue has now… pic.twitter.com/Ec7ApjJAGS

Robinhood’s recent announcement to expand its prediction markets follows the significant revenue generated by these contracts. The trading platform now offers contracts in different areas, including crypto, politics, economics, and sports. 

Robinhood’s push into new offerings comes during a more favorable regulatory environment for crypto.

The Regulatory Journey of Prediction Markets

Robinhood faced intense regulatory scrutiny under the previous administration, led by SEC Chair Gary Gensler. 

In January 2025, the SEC announced a $45 million settlement with the company for violations, including failures in recordkeeping, regulatory compliance, and anti-money laundering (AML) reporting.

A month later, following the change in administration, the SEC dropped the probe without taking any further enforcement action. Since Trump’s assumption, Robinhood has also begun offering futures trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Meanwhile, Kalshi has also faced its share of regulatory friction. 

Last year, the CFTC tried to shut down its election-related prediction markets. Kalshi successfully challenged this in court, and the CFTC eventually dropped its appeal. That said, in today’s press release, Robinhood clarified that Kalshi is indeed CFTC-regulated.