The popularity of event contracts seems indelible with Robinhood, one of the foremost platforms to offer such trades, arguing that it had processed 1bn event contracts in just six months.
Robinhood offers insight into the event contracts’ performance
Less than half of those contracts were for sports events, with the numbers offering an interesting look into the dynamic world of event contracts, which have taken markets by storm.
Offering trading options for events that are not traditionally available with sportsbooks, such as politics, platforms such as Kalshi and Robinhood have tapped into a new and powerful segment, and users seem to be happy with this.
Robinhood revealed the latest numbers during the Q1 2025 earnings call, with CEO Vladimir Tenev welcoming this new opportunity. Robinhood has been able to launch multiple sports-related event contracts over the past months, including on major American sports events such as March Madness, the NHL, and the NBA.
Tenev called the segment an "incredibly powerful, nascent asset-class," not hiding his company’s ambitions to see it involved more deeply with the vertical. The potential of this new field for Robinhood is vast, with more contracts to be featured over the coming months.
Revenue for the segment stood at $35m, although it’s important to note that event contracts are listed with "Other" in the company’s report, so the exact numbers are actually not clear. However, Tenev understands the dynamics of prediction markets well already.
He argues that there are sub-classes of consumers in the event contract vertical, as not all people who use this service are interested in, say, economic prediction markets. Some people are specifically looking for politics and sports events.
Despite pushback, prediction markets are likely to remain intact
The prediction market vertical is under attack from regulators and specifically gambling watchdogs that have been pushing back against Kalshi, whose event contracts for major sports events have been called unlawful.
However, Kalshi has so far been winning on the state level, securing temporary injunctions in New Jersey and Nevada against a cease-and-desist letter sent by the state’s respective gambling regulators seeking to halt the platforms’ operations locally.
Others have been joining too, with Sports Illustrated and DraftKings considering moves in event contracts markets.
