Robinhood eyes overseas prediction market launch as CEO touts metrics: Bloomberg

Robinhood is exploring how it might launch its prediction markets business in markets outside the United States, according to Bloomberg.

The trading platform has spoken to overseas regulators including the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, to better understand how the product could be regulated, Bloomberg also reported. In the U.S. prediction markets event contracts are treated as futures while in other territories they are considered more akin to gambling.

"It’s a swap here in the United States. So the question would be where is swap oversight, let’s say in the UK? That’s a question that we’ve been asking the FCA, how do we work it?" said JB Mackenzie, vice president and general manager of futures and international at Robinhood, according to Bloomberg.

News of Robinhood's desire to expand its prediction markets business follows the company's CEO Vlad Tenev posting to social media on Monday that the platform has handled 4 billion event contracts all time, with 2 billion coming in the third quarter. Robinhood shares rose on the Tenev's statement.

In August, Robinhood said it was launching an NFL and college football prediction market where users can trade on the outcome of games. The popular stock trading app is offering the service via Robinhood Derivatives through a partnership with Kalshi.

Kalshi and Polymarket are currently the two largest prediction markets platforms. Coinbase has shown interest in breaking into the market as well. 

Although Kalshi recently overtook Polymarket in terms of monthly trading volume. Polymarket, which has been the clear market leader for several months has not been allowed to operate in the U.S. for quite some time. The company is, however, expected to relaunch in the U.S. after recently passing a regulatory hurdle.

Robinhood, which gained traction as a user-friendly stock trading app, has been increasing expanding into crypto and crypto-related product offerings like prediction markets.

Both Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to wager on the outcome of events using cryptocurrency.