Robinhood prediction market revenue could jump sharply when the NFL and college football seasons get underway, according to a Wednesday note from Piper Sandler analyst Patrick Moley, who lifted his price target on HOOD to $145 from $135 and raised his earnings forecasts for 2026 and 2027.
The catalyst is straightforward: football is far more popular in the United States than football’s World Cup equivalent, and the World Cup already delivered explosive volume growth. Between June and August, average monthly prediction market volumes at Robinhood grew 88% compared to the January-to-May period, driven largely by World Cup engagement. Moley’s conclusion is that NFL and NCAA Football contracts should be a more powerful engine still.
‘Given Kalshi and HOOD’s US-centric user base, and the large gap in popularity between Soccer and Football in the US, we view the explosive World Cup volumes as a leading indicator of what’s to come,’ he wrote. ‘The NFL/[NCAA Football] season should be a significant catalyst for HOOD’s 3Q26 and 4Q26 prediction market revenue.’
How Rothera Changed the Routing Game
The World Cup was also the moment Robinhood’s own exchange entered the picture. Rothera Exchange and Clearing LLC began receiving order flow from Robinhood on 4 June 2026, when the company started routing a selection of World Cup and professional baseball contracts to the venue rather than to a third-party exchange. It was the first time Robinhood had sent order flow to its own platform.
Rothera is a joint venture between Robinhood and Susquehanna, announced in November 2025, built on the acquisition of MIAXdx, which closed on 20 January 2026. MIAX retained a 10% equity stake in the exchange, with Robinhood Markets serving as the controlling partner. The entity is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as both a Designated Contract Market and a Derivatives Clearing Organisation.
The economics of routing through Rothera matter. Piper Sandler has previously estimated that Robinhood receives approximately a 45% boost on its prediction market economics for contracts traded through the joint venture, compared with contracts routed through Kalshi, according to Investing.com’s reporting on a November 2025 Piper Sandler note. That spread is one reason Rothera’s share of Robinhood volume is being watched closely.
Moley estimates roughly 23% of prediction market volume has shifted to Rothera from Kalshi since June. The transition has not been seamless for Kalshi: HOOD users made up between 22% and 30% of all volume traded on Kalshi during last year’s football season, a share that has since fallen to the mid-single digits as Kalshi has pursued its own user base.
In Q2 2026, Robinhood reported 13.6 billion event contracts traded on its platform, with more than 5 billion of those during the World Cup alone. According to KuCoin’s aggregated reporting, Rothera processed over 3.5 billion contracts and generated $17 million in revenue in Q2 2026, against total Robinhood prediction market revenue of $156 million that quarter, though those figures are unaudited aggregator estimates.
Football Contracts and the Fight for Prediction Market Revenue
Robinhood management has confirmed that Rothera obtained CFTC approval to offer football contracts covering wins and spreads. The company also added a new routing partner ahead of the season: from 8 September 2026, Robinhood began sending a selection of football event contracts to Crypto.com’s prediction markets platform, in addition to continuing to route contracts to Kalshi, ForecastEX, and Rothera.
To build its Robinhood prediction market revenue projections for the second half of the year, Piper Sandler used Kalshi as a proxy. The firm’s analysts predict that from September through December, Robinhood users will trade roughly 29.7 billion event contracts and generate around $320 million in revenue, or $960 million annualised.
Football accounted for 42% of Kalshi’s total volume in the 2025 season, with the platform generating roughly $14 billion in NFL and NCAAF trading volume. Moley does not expect football-related contracts to dominate total prediction market volume to the same degree this time around. Major sports made up just 54% of Kalshi’s mix in August 2026, down from a high of 83% in November 2025, as broader contract categories have grown.
The regulatory path to this point was not always smooth. The CFTC previously requested that Robinhood not permit customers to access sports event contracts, leading the company to suspend a Pro Football Championship market after rolling it out to roughly 1% of customers. The confirmed CFTC approval for Rothera’s football contracts is what makes this season’s launch different from that earlier attempt.
Moley reiterated his overweight rating and raised his EPS estimates by 5% for 2026 and 7% for 2027. His revised $145 target implies about 35% upside from Wednesday’s close. Whether the NFL delivers the volumes the World Cup promised will be visible in Robinhood’s third-quarter results.
