Robinhood taps Kalshi to launch Super Bowl event contracts
Retail trading platform launches prediction markets for NFL's showpiece to its 24 million funded customers across all 50 US states
Robinhood has tapped Kalshi to launch event contracts on the Super Bowl with less than a week to go until the National Football League’s (NFL) showpiece finale.
Offered via the trading app’s Robinhood Derivatives arm, the event contracts for the Super Bowl will allow eligible customers to place trades on the outcome of the game.
The markets will be made available via Kalshi, which itself launched sports event contracts in January.
Crypto.com was the first to announce such markets before Christmas, although the US derivatives regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had called for the Singapore-based trading platform to pause the offering.
Crypto.com ignored the request and soon after saw Kalshi follow it into the sports market. The CFTC’s investigation into the Crypto.com offering is due to be finished by mid-April.
On 31 January, the CFTC issued a ruling that Kalshi would be able to offer its markets to third parties, with Robinhood confirming such a partnership today.
That ruling came after interim chair Caroline D Pham announced a series of roundtables to better understand the growing event contracts market. She previously said sports event contracts should be allowed.
Event contracts will begin rolling out today, 3 February. The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles are due to face off on 9 February in New Orleans.
Robinhood said it expects the Super Bowl event contracts, which are being marketed as “Pro Football Championship event contracts”, to be tradeable daily from 8am to 3am ET.
Customers must apply and be approved for a Robinhood Derivatives account, or already have an account, to place event contract trades.
The market is a simple “Who will win?” trade and is available in all 50 US states, including California and Texas where sports betting is not legal.
Robinhood said: “Robinhood’s mission is to democratise finance for all. With an emerging asset class like event contracts, we recognise an opportunity to better serve our customers as their interests converge across the markets, news, sports and entertainment.
“Available in all 50 states through KalshiEX LLC, a regulated exchange, the Pro Football Championship event contract gives eligible customers the power to trade on the outcome of the big game.
“Event contracts for the Pro Football Championship leverage the power and rigour of financial market structure to facilitate greater liquidity, transparency and price discovery.”
Robinhood’s expansion into sports event contracts comes after its success with the US presidential election market, when 507 million contracts were traded on the race between President Trump and Kamala Harris.
At the company’s Investor Day in December, CEO Vladimir Tenev said the business was “keenly looking into sports betting”.
It had been speculated how Robinhood would expand into the vertical, either with a traditional sportsbook or the rapidly growing event contracts space.
It remains to be seen what other markets Robinhood will expand into. Kalshi had offered markets on both the National Football Conference (NFC) and American Football Conference (AFC) Championship games.
The New York-based business, which counts President Trump’s son, Don Jr, as a special adviser, also has markets based on the half time show as well as what ads will run during the broadcast.