Robinhood has announced the rollout of event contracts through Rothera, the derivatives exchange it jointly owns with market maker Susquehanna International Group, as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Kalshi.
The move, timed for the start of the World Cup, is designed to give the retail brokerage control over exchange, clearing and product design at a time when event contract volumes on its platform continue to surge.
Robinhood processed 12 billion event contracts in 2025, with a record quarterly volume of 8.5 million trades in the last three months of the year. Earlier this year, CEO Vlad Tenev hailed prediction markets as the “fastest-growing business in our history”.
The firm confirmed that most World Cup and selected MLB markets will be routed to Rothera, although some event contracts – including player markets and combos – will still be routed via Kalshi.
The shift to Rothera could have a material impact on Kalshi, with Robinhood understood to drive as much as 50% of the prediction market leader’s volume.
Steve Quirk, Robinhood’s chief brokerage officer, said the Rothera launch gives the firm “control over the economics” around its event contracts.
“We really want to replicate the model that exists today for equities options, crypto, where we have optionality to route to any venue that’s creating products or experiences that are going to be good for our customers,” he said.
“We want to be able to have control over the economics – in the case of Rothera, we’re going to take some of the economics that we previously were giving to Kalshi and deliver them to our customers.”
Quirk added that owning the infrastructure gives Robinhood more freedom to innovate. “If we want to create a product, we’re not dependent upon anybody else to create that,” he said. “We have that ability.”
Elsewhere, Rush Street Interactive (RSI) appears to have U-turned on earlier claims it has “no need” to offer prediction markets by submitting an application to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become a designated contract market (DCM).
The application does not mean an RSI prediction market is imminent – DCM applications can take a year or longer to be approved – but the operator is understood to want the flexibility to respond to developments in the space, as per reports from InGame.
DraftKings is the only state-regulated sportsbook to hold a DCM licence, after it acquired Railbird, a CFTC-approved exchange. FanDuel and Fanatics both operate their prediction market products via third-party exchanges.
The post Robinhood signals shift away from Kalshi ahead of World Cup first appeared on EGR Intel.
Retail brokerage to route majority of event contracts through new Rothera JV, while Rush Street Interactive applies for DCM
The post Robinhood signals shift away from Kalshi ahead of World Cup first appeared on EGR Intel.