by Robinhood announced Monday that it is tapping into a growing market for political predictions by allowing users to trade contracts with Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for the 2024 presidential election.
Users could start trading between 8 a.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET, provided they met certain requirements, such as being a U.S. citizen, the investment platform said in a press release. The event contract is offered by Robinhood Derivatives and ForecastEx.
Contracts will cost between two cents and 99 cents, earning a $1 payout if the user guesses the winning candidate.
Users can purchase up to 5,000 election contracts, meaning Robinhood users can win up to $5,000 if they guess correctly, company spokesperson Christina Trejo told Forbes.
Robinhood is one of the most recognizable companies in the election betting industry. The move comes after Kalshi and Interactive Brokers won a ruling against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow trading of election results. The CFTC is appealing this decision.
Since the ruling, Interactive Brokers has launched various political contracts.
In a neck-and-neck race, more observers have turned to political betting markets to predict who will win the presidency. Betting platforms are betting heavily on a Trump victory. It is unclear how betting markets compare to polls when it comes to the accuracy of outcome predictions.
Election betting markets faced controversy last week when political gaming platform Polymarket confirmed that four accounts collectively betting more than $28 million on Trump were controlled by a single trader. The company told CNBC that the trader was a French national with “extensive business experience and training in financial services.”
Polymarket, which is currently banned from U.S. traders, said there was no evidence the trader was trying to skew Trump’s odds in betting markets.
For users looking to trade the Harris and Trump contracts, negotiations will be open almost 24/7 during the week of the election, with a 15-minute no-trading period at 5 p.m. ET each day.
Contracts will be paid on January 7 and 8, 2025.
