Robinhood's Prediction Markets Are Tilting Away From Sports, Tenev Says

Robinhood's prediction markets are pulling in money faster than any other part of the company, and the mix of what people are betting on is shifting. CEO Vlad Tenev said on CNBC's "Mad Money" that crypto-linked contracts already account for a disproportionate share of that activity, and he expects sports wagers to become the minority of the business within a few years, according to Decrypt.

"We're already seeing other categories like crypto taking a disproportionate share," Tenev told host Jim Cramer. "I think within a few years, sports will actually be in the minority, similar to active trading at large."

Prediction markets, sometimes called event contracts, let traders take a yes-or-no position on a future outcome — a Federal Reserve rate decision, an election, a football game — rather than placing a bet through a sportsbook. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that oversees futures and options, regulates these contracts as derivatives. That regulatory status is central to Tenev's argument that the product is not simply gambling under a different label.

Crypto volume is climbing as trading revenue slips

The financial picture inside Robinhood supports the shift. Event-contract revenue reached $156 million in the second quarter of 2026, more than ten times the figure from a year earlier, making prediction markets the company's fastest-growing line. Over that same period, crypto trading revenue declined. In August alone, 4.7 billion contracts changed hands, roughly 15 times the volume recorded a year prior. The prediction that sports will shrink into a minority share remains Tenev's own forecast rather than a reported result.

Robinhood's event-contract business rests on several partners. It launched on top of Kalshi, the exchange that prevailed in a legal fight with the CFTC over offering election-related contracts. It then added Rothera, a CFTC-licensed joint venture with trading firm Susquehanna that was tested during this year's World Cup. This month the company went further, acquiring minority equity stakes in Crypto.com and its prediction-market spinoff OG.com, bringing in a third partner to clear and settle trades.

The category is drawing competition. CME, Coinbase and several decentralized platforms are all courting traders for event contracts, a market that crypto-native venues such as Polymarket helped establish years before traditional brokerages entered. Tenev described sports contracts as a "wedge" that got the business moving. "Sports has been a great tool to bring people in, get liquidity, get interest, establish," he said, "but I think the industry is also expanding far beyond sports."

He frames both sports and crypto contracts as part of a broader argument about ownership. "We believe that ownership is essential, not just because if people are owners, they have skin in the game, they can benefit financially, but also a society where more people own high quality financial assets is inherently a more stable society," Tenev said. It is the same reasoning he uses to defend Robinhood's 3% match on retirement contributions.

Crypto contracts fit that pitch because they convert a view into a tradable position. Tenev pointed to the Clarity Act, pending legislation that would determine which federal regulator oversees digital assets, as an example. "If you have a particular view on crypto market structure legislation, the Clarity Act, we have a market on that."

That breadth has drawn scrutiny in Washington. Lawmakers have introduced more than 10 bills since January aimed at prediction markets, including the PREDICT Act, which would bar members of Congress and senior officials from trading contracts tied to political events. Critics contend that placing sports and political wagers alongside retirement accounts makes the boundary between investing and gambling harder to see, a question regulators have yet to resolve. Tenev's timeline for sports becoming a minority of the business does not depend on that debate settling first.