Robinhood launches March Madness prediction market

Sports Betting

Robinhood has announced that its Robinhood Derivatives, unit has added a “prediction markets” hub directly within the Robinhood App, giving customers the opportunity to trade on the outcomes of some of the world’s sporting biggest events.

At launch, the hub will allow customers to trade contracts for what the upper bound of the target fed funds rate will be in May, as well as the upcoming men’s and women’s “March Madness” College Basketball Tournaments.

Robinhood expects the College Basketball Tournament and target fed fund rate event contracts to be tradeable daily from 8:00am ET until 3:00am ET.

The move comes several weeks after Robinhood attempted to launch an NFL Super Bowl event contract – effectively betting on the outcome of the game – but withdrew following pressure from derivatives market regulator CFTC. Robinhood did have a successful event contract allowed for betting on November’s US Presidential election.

Robinhood’s entry into what amounts to Sports Betting puts it in direct competition with established sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel, which are heavily regulated, licensed, and well-funded – and directly opposed to companies trying to take their market share.

JB Mackenzie, VP & GM of Futures and International at Robinhood said, “We believe in the power of prediction markets and think they play an important role at the intersection of news, economics, politics, sports, and culture. We’re excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations.”

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