Robinhood rolls back Pro Football Championship Market after regulator steps in
Trading platform Robinhood has been forced to roll back plans to launch sports contracts following intervention by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Robinhood only announced the launch of the sports contracts on Monday, via a partnership with prediction market Kalshi in time for Saturday evening’s Super Bowl LIX kick off between Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
However, the US commodities regulator has since called on Kalshi and crypto exchange Crypto.com, which is also offering wagers on the Super Bowl, to clarify how their events contracts comply with derivatives regulations.
“While we continue to work with the CFTC to understand their concerns, we are suspending the rollout of the Pro Football Championship market,” Robinhood said in a statement yesterday. “We have rolled this product out to roughly 1% of our customers, and for those who already placed trades, we plan on providing the option to close their positions or take them to resolution.”
The trading platform said it was “disappointed by this outcome”, emphasising that it had been in regular contact with the regulator about its plans to launch the product.
“We’ve also taken steps to advocate for balanced regulation in the futures and derivatives markets, including participating directly in a CFTC roundtable, providing written feedback to the CFTC, and generally championing the economic benefits of event contracts,” the statement added.
At present Crypto.com is committed to offering wagers on the Super Bowl despite the regulator’s concerns.
In a statement to Cointelegraph yesterday, a Crypto.com spokesperson said: “We firmly believe in the legality of our events contracts and believe the CFTC is the appropriate regulator to bring federally regulated market integrity, manipulation controls and product availability in all 50 states.”
Robinhood has pledged to continue to collaborate with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a bid to roll out “a more comprehensive event contracts platform” later this year.
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