Robinhood Receives Formal Request from the CFTC to Roll Back the Pro Football Championship Market

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has formally requested that Robinhood Derivatives, LLC (RHD) “not permit customers to access” sports event contracts.
While we continue to work with the CFTC to understand their concerns, we are suspending the rollout of the Pro Football Championship market. We have rolled this product out to roughly 1% of our customers, and for those who already placed trades, we plan on providing the option to close their positions or take them to resolution.
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. We’ve also taken steps to advocate for balanced regulation in the futures and derivatives markets, including participating directly in a CFTC roundtable, providing written feedback to the CFTC, and generally championing the economic benefits of event contracts.
RHD will continue to collaborate with the CFTC as we work to roll out a more comprehensive event contracts platform later this year. Read more on our stance here.
Disclosures:
Futures, options on futures and cleared swaps trading is offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, a registered futures commission merchant with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Member of National Futures Association (NFA).
Futures, options on futures and cleared swaps trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Please carefully consider if it’s appropriate for you in light of your personal financial circumstances.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This blog post contains forward-looking statements, including with respect to the suspension of the Pro Football Championship event contracts by RHD, a wholly owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc. (together with its consolidated subsidiaries, “we”, “our,” “Robinhood,” or the “Company”), and our strategic and operational plans, including (among others) statements that we will be suspending the rollout of the Pro Football Championship market; that we continue to work with the CFTC to understand their concerns; that we have rolled this product out to roughly 1% of our customers, and for those who already placed trades, we plan on providing the option to close their positions or take them to resolution; that we’ve taken steps to advocate for balanced regulation in the futures and derivatives markets and generally champion the economic benefits of event contracts; and that RHD will continue to collaborate with the CFTC as we work to roll out a more comprehensive event contracts platform later this year. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “believe,” “may,” “will” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “scheduled,” “contemplate,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. Our forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause our actual future results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied in this blog post. Factors that contribute to the uncertain nature of our forward-looking statements include, among others: the significant uncertain and evolving federal and state regulatory environment with respect to sports event contracts, including actual and potential adverse litigation and regulatory actions against companies like us for offering sports event contracts; the impact of potential negative publicity, including with respect to suspending sports event contracts, on our brand and reputation; our limited operating experience at our current scale; the difficulty of managing our business effectively, including the size of our workforce; the risk that changes in business, economic, or political conditions that impact the global financial markets, or a systemic market event, might harm our business; the difficulty of complying with an extensive, complex, and changing regulatory environment, including with respect to sports event contracts and futures, and the need to adjust our business model in response to new or modified laws and regulations; the possibility of adverse developments in pending litigation and regulatory investigations; the effects of competition; our need to innovate and invest in new products, services, technologies, and geographies in order to attract and retain customers and deepen their engagement with us in order to maintain growth; our reliance on third parties to perform some key functions and the risk that processing, operational or technological failures could impair the availability or stability of our platforms; and our need as a regulated financial services company to develop and maintain effective compliance and risk management infrastructures and controls, including with respect to event contracts and futures. Because some of these risks and uncertainties cannot be predicted or quantified and some are beyond our control, you should not rely on our forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. More information about potential risks and uncertainties that could affect our business and financial results can be found in Part II, Item 1A of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, as well as in our other filings with the SEC, all of which are available on the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment; new risks and uncertainties may emerge from time to time, particularly with respect to event contracts and Commodity Interest products offered by Robinhood, and it is not possible for us to predict all risks nor identify all uncertainties. The events and circumstances reflected in our forward-looking statements might not be achieved and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise noted, all forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this blog post, February 4, 2025 and are based on information and estimates available to us at this time. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, performance, or achievements. Except as required by law, Robinhood assumes no obligation to update any of the statements in this blog post whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances, or otherwise. You should read this blog post with the understanding that our actual future results, performance, events, and circumstances might be materially different from what we expect.
4215325