Robinhood CEO Says Crypto Will Beat Sports at Prediction Markets' Own Game

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev told CNBC’s Mad Money that crypto-linked event contracts are increasingly dominating the company’s prediction-markets business and could outpace sports wagers within a few years. Tenev described sports contracts as a useful initial draw that helped establish liquidity and user interest, but said other categories—particularly crypto—are taking a “disproportionate share.”

The company’s results show rapid growth in the division: event-contract revenue rose to $156 million in the second quarter of 2026, a more than tenfold increase year over year. Trading activity has also accelerated sharply, with 4.7 billion contracts traded in August, roughly 15 times the volume recorded in August 2025.

Robinhood has built its event-contract capability on the Kalshi exchange and its own CFTC-licensed joint venture Rothera, formed with trading firm Susquehanna. This month the firm broadened its clearing and settlement relationships by taking minority equity stakes in Crypto.com and that platform’s prediction-market spinout, OG.com.

Competition for prediction-market volume is intensifying: established exchanges such as CME, crypto platforms including Coinbase, and decentralized venues that popularized crypto-native markets are all pursuing traders. Meanwhile, lawmakers have introduced more than 10 bills since January aimed at prediction-market activity—among them the PREDICT Act, which would bar members of Congress and senior officials from trading political-event contracts—underscoring regulatory and policy debates that could affect the category’s future.