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Discussed in this piece:

1) Event contracts hit $156m in Q2, passing equities and crypto for the first time

2) 13.6 billion contracts traded

3) Rothera, and why revenue grew 50% while the fee per contract fell

4) The optimistic read and the worry

🖋️ This piece was written and researched by Pet Berisha and Omar El Safy

Robinhood now earn more from prediction markets than from stocks or crypto.

Event contracts hit $156 million of revenue in the quarter, compared to $129 million for equities and $100 million for crypto. Options remain the biggest revenue line at $342 million.

The quarter itself was the best in Robinhood's history. Net revenue rose 32% to $1.31 billion, and net income rose 48% to $573 million, though that included $129 million in one-off gains from deconsolidating their venture fund.

A year ago, event contracts posted $10 million, 2% of Robinhood's transaction revenue, and they are now 20% of it, up 10x year on year. Across everything, including the interest income, they are 12% of total net revenue.

Customers traded 13.6 billion event contracts in Q2, up 55% on Q1 and an all-time high. June was the biggest month in the product's history at 6.4 billion contracts, coinciding with the World Cup. The current run rate is $624 million a year.

Analyst estimates have crossed over as well. Bloomberg's full-year consensus now has Robinhood's prediction markets revenue at $614 million, above the $475 million expected from crypto.

In June, Robinhood switched on Rothera, the CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse they control in a joint venture with market makers Susquehanna. We covered the structure of that deal when it launched.

For Robinhood the blended implied fee per contract fell to 1.15 cents in Q2, from 1.18 cents in Q1, and revenue still grew 50% quarter on quarter.

But if we separate Rothera volume from non-Rothera volume, the non-Rothera implied rose to 1.21 cents.

Rothera is what pulled the average fee down. From 2.1 billion contracts generating $17 million, it had an implied fee of 0.81 cents per contract.

Under the original Kalshi distribution deal, Robinhood reportedly kept between 30% and 50% of the fee pool on contracts their customers traded. Owning the venue means keeping the listing, the clearing and the fees. And last week Robinhood were reported to be in talks to add Crypto.com's prediction markets to Rothera, too.

This is against the backdrop of the wider industry trading roughly $54 billion in July 2026, per Artemis, most of it on Kalshi and Polymarket. Rothera barely registers on that chart, so there is a long way to go. Of course, these earnings reports and investor responses will no doubt encourage Robinhood to double and triple down in this sector.

On the earnings call, CEO Vlad Tenev framed Robinhood as 13 separate business lines, each generating more than $100 million annualised, tied to one goal of "making everyone an owner."

Simon put both sides of the coin in this thread.

"My optimistic read is that people come for the speculation and stay for the investing, and there is at least some evidence for it."

Robinhood Gold rose to 4.8 million subscribers, up 39%, net deposits hit a record $21.7 billion, and equities trading revenue nearly doubled year on year.

"My worry is that for a substantial portion of the user base, it never happens, and Robinhood is simply very good at monetizing speculation."

Crypto trading revenue fell 38% year on year in the same quarter that event contracts grew 50%, and at least part of that looks like the same speculative money moving to the newest offering. App crypto trading volume fell 23% quarter on quarter to $18.3 billion, and institutional volume on Bitstamp, the exchange Robinhood bought last year, fell 47%.

And speaking of ‘not’ making customers owners…sports wagering is still the majority of the volume.

Robinhood do not disclose how much of the event contract business is sports. In late June, 97% of open interest was World Cup markets, and the flow routed through Kalshi was mostly player props and parlays.

That leaves Robinhood in a very interesting spot.

Their fastest-growing revenue business is prediction markets.

And in their relationships with Kalshi, and reportedly, soon to be with Crypto.com, they are both a customer and a competitor.

As I wrote in Monday's roundup, I don't really get why this makes much sense for Crypto.com. They would be letting Robinhood rent their contract inventory, use it to validate demand from retail, and then eventually self-certify the contracts themselves and cut Crypto.com out.

Maybe I'm being too cynical, and everyone will continue being friendly in this arena.

Certainly, it’s fascinating to watch every company in this space, crypto or digital brokerage, fawn over this sector to the extent that they are willing to pass up long-term, sustainable revenues from building out their own businesses, for short-term upside in partnering with competitors.

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