Robinhood halts Super Bowl bets a day after launch on CFTC request

Robinhood Markets has suspended Super Bowl betting after receiving a request from the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission to nix its customers’ access to the event contracts.

The halt comes just a day after Robinhood launched the product in partnership with prediction market Kalishi, allowing wagers on the outcome of the Philadelphia Eagles versus Kansas City Chiefs Feb. 9 game in the National Football League’s championship Super Bowl. 

In a Feb. 4 announcement, Robinhood said it would suspend the rollout of the Pro Football Championship market as it continues to work with the CFTC to understand its concerns.

The firm said it had rolled out the product to around 1% of its customers, some of who had already placed trades. 

“We are disappointed by this outcome, especially given that we had been in regular communication with the CFTC about our intent and plans to offer this product,” Robinhood said. 

It comes just a day after reports that the CFTC was probing Crypto.com and Kalshi over their offerings of Super Bowl event contracts and whether they comply with derivatives regulations. 

Event contracts differ from traditional betting in that the odds come from a pool of users betting on the likely winner rather than a bookmaker creating the odds.

Crypto.com told Cointelegraph it would continue to offer the wagers despite the probe. 

Related: CFTC mulling probe of Crypto.com over Super Bowl contracts: Report

Robinhood made its first foray into event contracts in October, offering trades based on the outcome of the US presidential election. 

The announcement followed a court win by prediction platform Kalshi against the CFTC, allowing the platform to offer US-based users contracts for betting on election outcomes.

Magazine: You should ‘go and build’ your own AI agent: Jesse Pollak, X Hall of Flame