Robinhood Pulls Volume From Kalshi

Robinhood moving marquee World Cup contracts onto its own venue shows that distribution is no longer neutral in prediction markets, it is where the economics and customer ownership sit. Kalshi used Robinhood to reach a mass retail audience fast, but once sports contracts proved they could drive frequent trading, Robinhood had a clear reason to keep the highest velocity contracts on infrastructure it controls and monetizes more directly.

• Robinhood first launched prediction markets in March 2025 using KalshiEX as the underlying regulated exchange. By late 2025 it had built enough internal conviction to buy its own CFTC licensed venue through the MIAXdx deal, which closed on January 20, 2026, turning a distributor into a direct venue operator.
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• This matters most in sports because sports contracts resolve fast and bring users back daily. Earlier research showed Kalshi shifting from election contracts into sports, with roughly 75% of volume coming from sports by spring 2025, and the June 2026 World Cup driving huge category volume across both Kalshi and Polymarket.
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• The broader pattern is verticalization. DraftKings bought Railbird for a federal event contracts path, Polymarket bought QCEX to enter the U.S., and Robinhood now lists World Cup contracts through multiple venues including Rothera, KalshiEX, and ForecastEX. The winning platforms are trying to own both the app and the exchange rails underneath it.
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Going forward, the category is likely to split into two layers, consumer apps with giant audiences and exchange operators supplying licenses, liquidity, and market structure. Kalshi can still win by powering many fronts at once, but its biggest upside now depends on becoming indispensable infrastructure before partners with scale fully internalize the volume.