Open the Robinhood app today and you'll find a Prediction Markets Hub sitting alongside stocks, options, and crypto. It lets customers take positions on questions like where the Fed sets interest rates, who wins a March Madness game, or how a jobs report lands. What most people don't realize is that Robinhood isn't running one market behind that hub. It's routing orders to three separate CFTC-regulated exchanges, and it co-owns one of them.

That structure has changed fast, and a lot of what's written about it online is now out of date. This piece lays out what Robinhood actually offers, how the plumbing works, what the exchange called Rothera is, and how the whole thing relates to Kalshi. If you've searched "robinhood prediction markets vs kalshi" and come away confused, that's because the honest answer is no longer a single name.

The short version

Robinhood does not operate a prediction market of its own in the sense most people assume. Its broker entity, Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, lists event contracts inside the app and sends each one to whichever CFTC-regulated exchange offers it: KalshiEX LLC, ForecastEx LLC, or Rothera. Of those three, Rothera is the only one Robinhood has an ownership stake in, through a joint venture. Kalshi is fully independent. That's the whole model in three sentences, and the rest of this article unpacks each part.

What Robinhood launched, and when

Robinhood introduced its in-app Prediction Markets Hub on March 17, 2025. At launch it was powered by KalshiEX LLC, an independent, CFTC-regulated exchange that Robinhood does not own. Robinhood's role was distribution: it listed Kalshi's contracts inside its own app and gave its customers a familiar way to trade them. The first categories were the federal funds rate and March Madness.

This is the origin of the widespread belief that "Robinhood's prediction markets are Kalshi." In March 2025 that was essentially accurate. It is no longer the full story.

How it works now: one app, three exchanges

By mid-2026, Robinhood's product had moved to a three-venue routing model. Contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, and each is listed on one of three CFTC-regulated exchanges:

  • KalshiEX LLC — the original partner, independent of Robinhood.
  • ForecastEx LLC — owned by Interactive Brokers, and unrelated to Robinhood.
  • Rothera — the exchange Robinhood co-owns through a joint venture, and the one it is deliberately growing.

The mechanic worth understanding is that the exchange is where a contract legally lives, clears, and settles. The Robinhood app is the storefront. When you take a position in the hub, the order is routed to one of these three exchanges depending on the contract. Reporting indicates Robinhood steers its core, higher-volume markets toward Rothera while sending more complex products, such as multi-leg props and parlays, to Kalshi. The exact split is a moving target, so treat that as the general direction rather than a fixed rule.

If you're new to how any of these venues turn prices into forecasts, our explainer on what a prediction market is covers the underlying mechanics, including why a contract's price reads directly as an implied probability.

What Rothera actually is

Rothera is the part of this story that gets garbled most often, so it's worth being precise.

In January 2026, a joint venture between Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group (SIG) acquired 90% of MIAXdx, a pre-existing CFTC-registered exchange formerly known as LedgerX. The venture rebranded it as Rothera, formally Rothera Exchange and Clearing LLC, a subsidiary of the Rothera, LLC joint venture. Rothera is registered with the CFTC as both a Designated Contract Market (DCM), meaning the exchange itself, and its own clearinghouse, a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO).

The key point: Rothera was not built from scratch. Robinhood and SIG bought an exchange that already held the licenses, then rebranded it. Acquiring an existing DCM and DCO is a well-worn path to standing up a regulated venue quickly, because the hardest part, the federal registration, is already done.

Publicly, Rothera has listed contracts on baseball outcomes, weekly jobless claims, Core PCE inflation, and World Cup soccer. For a fuller treatment of the venue itself, see our dedicated Rothera explainer.

Five things people get wrong

Because the structure evolved so quickly, a handful of misconceptions have hardened into common wisdom. Here's the correction on each.

1. "Robinhood's prediction markets are Kalshi-powered."

True at the March 2025 launch, no longer the whole picture. The hub now routes across three exchanges. Kalshi is one of them, not the sole engine.

2. "Rothera is Robinhood's exchange."

Rothera is a joint venture between Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group, not a wholly owned Robinhood exchange. Robinhood co-owns it; it doesn't own it outright.

3. "Rothera was built from scratch."

It's a rebrand of MIAXdx, an exchange that was already CFTC-registered before the acquisition. The venture bought the license, it didn't originate one.

4. "Robinhood Derivatives and Rothera are the same thing."

They're different entities with different roles. Robinhood Derivatives, LLC is the customer-facing broker (the futures commission merchant) that lists contracts in the app. Rothera Exchange and Clearing LLC is the exchange and clearinghouse where certain contracts trade and settle. One is the storefront, the other is the marketplace.

5. "Kalshi works for Robinhood."

Kalshi is an independent, CFTC-regulated exchange. It is not owned by, or subordinate to, Robinhood. Robinhood is a distribution partner that lists Kalshi contracts, nothing more.

Is this gambling?

It's a fair question, and a common search. The contracts Robinhood lists are CFTC-regulated event contracts traded on federally registered exchanges, not sportsbook wagers. The distinction is regulatory and structural: a sportsbook sets odds to build in its own margin, while an exchange matches buyers and sellers and lets the price float to whatever participants will pay. That price, in turn, reads as a probability. We walk through the full comparison in sports betting vs. prediction markets. For the neutral framing that matters to researchers and reporters, the useful lens isn't whether to take a position, it's what the money-weighted price is forecasting.

Reading Robinhood's markets as a forecast signal

Whichever exchange a contract routes to, the output is the same kind of number: a price that maps to the market's collective estimate of an outcome. A jobless-claims contract trading at 40¢ is the market pricing that outcome at roughly 40%. For anyone tracking the space rather than trading it, that's the signal worth watching, and it's comparable across venues once you normalize the data.

At TickerTracker we track Rothera among the platforms we cover, alongside Kalshi and others, from a pure volume-and-analytics standpoint: how big a market is, how active it is, and what it's forecasting. We don't route orders or take positions. If you want to see where the money and attention are pooling across the prediction-market landscape, that's the vantage point we build for.

Common questions

Who powers Robinhood's prediction markets?

Three CFTC-regulated exchanges: KalshiEX LLC, ForecastEx LLC (owned by Interactive Brokers), and Rothera (co-owned by Robinhood and Susquehanna). Robinhood Derivatives, LLC lists the contracts in the app and routes each to the relevant exchange.

Is Robinhood prediction markets the same as Kalshi?

Not anymore. At the March 2025 launch the hub ran entirely on Kalshi, but Robinhood now routes across three exchanges. Kalshi remains one venue among them and is fully independent of Robinhood.

What is Rothera?

Rothera is a CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse (a DCM and DCO) that a Robinhood–Susquehanna joint venture created by acquiring 90% of the already-registered MIAXdx in January 2026 and rebranding it. It has listed contracts on baseball, jobless claims, Core PCE inflation, and World Cup soccer.

Does Robinhood own Kalshi?

No. Kalshi is an independent, CFTC-regulated exchange. Robinhood is a distribution partner that lists Kalshi's contracts; it has no ownership of Kalshi.

Is trading prediction markets on Robinhood legal gambling?

The contracts are CFTC-regulated event contracts on federally registered exchanges, not sportsbook bets. That's a different regulatory framework from gambling, though the two share some surface mechanics. See sports betting vs. prediction markets for the full distinction.