HOOD Bets on Football Prediction Markets: Can it Score Long-Term Gains?

Robinhood Markets HOOD has taken another step in its diversification strategy, announcing the launch of pro and college football prediction markets. This expansion introduces trading on all NFL regular-season games and matchups from the Power Four conferences and select independents.

Unlike traditional sportsbooks that rely on fixed odds, Robinhood’s offering allows users to trade event contracts, buying and selling positions on game outcomes with prices determined by market interaction. This market-based structure, powered by a partnership with Kalshi, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchange, enables HOOD to operate in a federally regulated environment, sidestepping restrictive state betting laws.

Since debuting its prediction markets in 2024, Robinhood has facilitated more than 2 billion contracts, signaling strong engagement. Per JB Mackenzie, VP of Futures and International at HOOD, football was a natural next step given its popularity.

Event contracts are part of Robinhood’s broader vision to become a one-stop platform for investing and trading. While the opportunity is compelling, regulatory scrutiny of event contracts remains a risk and adoption rates are untested in sports markets. If adoption scales, sports prediction markets could open a new growth avenue for the company, strengthen brand stickiness and support further monetization beyond traditional brokerage services.

How Robinhood’s Peers are Expanding Product Suite

Similar to HOOD, Interactive Brokers IBKR is expanding its prediction markets business. Earlier this month, the company, which launched Forecast Contracts in August 2024 for eligible clients in the United States and Hong Kong, expanded it into Europe. Thus, this gives investors across the globe more ways to act on their views and manage risk through its comprehensive platform.

Apart from this, Interactive Brokers has continuously been making efforts to expand the product suite and reach of its services. The company expanded with new crypto offerings, GlobalTrader, Overnight Trading, IBKR Lite, Impact Dashboard and IBKR Desktop, reinforcing its innovation focus and broadening global client access across asset classes.

Under CEO Billy Hult, Tradeweb TW continues pushing the "electronification" of bond markets, having expanded beyond government bonds into mortgages, interest-rate swaps, ETFs and emerging markets, plus a new frontier in private credit. 

Tradeweb is also investing in blockchain and distributed ledger technology to improve settlement and collateral management. AI is another strategic focus, with machine learning tools enhancing trade execution and dealer-client matching.

Robinhood’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimate Analysis

Investors are bullish on HOOD stock, which has surged 188.5% this year. In comparison, the industry has rallied 21.5%. Further, Interactive Brokers has gained 41.3%, while Tradeweb shares have declined 2.2% in the same time frame. 

YTD Price Performance
 

Given the impressive price performance, HOOD shares are currently trading at a massive premium to the industry. The company has a 12-month trailing price-to-tangible book (P/TB) of 13.03X compared with the industry average of 2.85X.

P/TB TTM
 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Robinhood’s 2025 and 2026 earnings implies year-over-year growth of 42.2% and 20.8%, respectively. In the past week, earnings estimates for 2025 and 2026 have been marginally revised upward.

Earnings Estimates
 

HOOD currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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