Shares surged +6.5% to $90.37 on May 29 — capping a +23% rally in just five trading sessions — after CFO Shiv Verma told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference that Robinhood plans to rapidly migrate most of its prediction-market trading onto its own in-house exchange. The move signals a fundamental shift: Robinhood wants to stop renting and start owning.
• Cutting Out the Middleman Could Double What Robinhood Keeps Per Trade. Until now, Robinhood has acted only as the customer-facing broker, routing trades to third-party exchanges like Kalshi. With its new exchange — a joint venture with trading giant Susquehanna — Robinhood is now vertically integrated, controlling the product, engineering, and crucially, the economics.
Currently, one cent per contract goes to Robinhood and one cent to the outside exchange. When it controls both sides, "there's a lot of things you can do."
Verma said the company won't hurt its take rate but will pass most of the savings to customers as better pricing — a classic Robinhood playbook to grab market share.
• Prediction Markets Already Grew 320% and Are Now a Real Revenue Line. In Q1 2026, event-contract revenue hit $147 million, up 320% year-over-year, on a record 8.8 billion contracts traded.
Meanwhile, crypto revenue plunged 47% to $134 million — meaning prediction markets have already surpassed crypto as a transaction revenue source. Owning the exchange could widen the margin Robinhood earns on every one of those contracts.
• The World Cup Gives Robinhood a Ready-Made Launch Party. The exchange filed four soccer event-contract certifications with the CFTC, with listing dates as early as June 1 — just ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
Prediction-market users have already grown from one million to 1.5 million in recent months , and a global sporting event could supercharge that adoption curve right as Robinhood flips the switch on its new venue.
• Regulatory Clouds Haven't Cleared. The gaming industry claims states have lost $1 billion in tax revenue to prediction markets, and 41 attorneys general have weighed in arguing the CFTC shouldn't regulate what looks like sports betting.
Some lawmakers are pushing bills to add restrictions, and scrutiny may intensify as these products grow. A crackdown could undercut the entire thesis before the new exchange reaches scale.
The stock is still ~41% below its October 2025 all-time high of $152.46. At a trailing P/E of 47x and TTM revenue of $4.6 billion , investors are betting that owning the exchange turns a fast-growing product into a structurally more profitable one. Whether regulators let that happen is the billion-dollar question.