Robinhood said Tuesday that it was withdrawing its plans to offer betting contracts on the Super Bowl, following pushback from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which raised concerns that the contracts might be illegal.
“We were in regular contact with the CFTC prior to launching this product, and we believe we are in full compliance with all applicable regulations,” said Robinhood General Counsel Lucas Moskowitz. Still, “we are heeding their directive to cease offering these contracts,” he added.
“在推出该产品之前,我们与 CFTC 保持定期联系,并且我们相信自己完全符合所有适用法规,”Robinhood 总法律顾问 Lucas Moskowitz 表示。不过,他补充道:“我们正在遵循他们的指示,停止提供这些合约。”
Robinhood said it had been asked by the CFTC to stop offering its customers access to the sports contracts on Monday afternoon, just hours after it unveiled its sports-betting plans, a move that blurred the lines between regulated financial markets and gambling.
Robinhood launched the contracts through a partnership with Kalshi, an online prediction market that listed a family of sports-betting contracts in January.
CFTC-regulated prediction markets such as Kalshi are barred under federal law from listing contracts that involve “gaming” and are against the public interest, but the definition of “gaming” isn’t spelled out in the law, which has led to disputes over what is permitted.
Earlier Tuesday, a CFTC spokesman said the agency had “serious concerns” about brokers offering customers access to contracts that “may not be permissible under the law.” The agency “will exercise its oversight authority to the fullest extent as appropriate,” the spokesman added.
Robinhood has rolled out its sports bets to about 1% of customers, the company said. Those investors will have the choice between closing their positions or taking them to resolution.
The Super Bowl bets were Robinhood’s second foray into the world of event contracts, a type of derivative contract that allows investors to bet on an outcome of a future event. Such events might range from elections to the weather to pop culture. Robinhood launched event contracts on the U.S. presidential election late last year that proved popular among customers.
超级碗投注是 Robinhood 第二次涉足事件合约领域,这是一种衍生合约,允许投资者对未来事件的结果进行押注。此类事件可能涵盖从选举到天气再到流行文化。Robinhood 去年年底推出了针对美国总统选举的事件合约,并在客户中颇受欢迎。
Robinhood said it was disappointed by the CFTC’s move and noted that the agency hadn’t formally deemed Kalshi’s contracts illegal. The brokerage is working with the CFTC to roll out a larger event-contracts platform later this year, Robinhood said.
Robinhood 表示对 CFTC 的举措感到失望,并指出该机构尚未正式认定 Kalshi 的合约非法。Robinhood 称,该券商正与 CFTC 合作,计划在今年晚些时候推出一个更大的事件合约平台。
Prediction markets have been testing the limits of what they are permitted to list following a court ruling last year that legalized election betting. The arrival of the Trump administration, which is expected to usher in an era of light-touch financial regulation, also emboldened the platforms to push the envelope.
预测市场一直在测试其被允许上市的边界,此前一项法院裁决在去年使选举投注合法化。特朗普政府的到来预计将带来宽松的金融监管,这也鼓励了这些平台不断突破界限。
In December, Crypto.com listed a Super Bowl contract on a prediction-market platform it owns, despite years of longstanding CFTC resistance to such contracts. During the last days of the Biden administration, the CFTC asked the digital-currency exchange to suspend trading of the contracts, but Crypto.com refused.
去年 12 月,Crypto.com 在其拥有的预测市场平台上列出了一份超级碗合约,尽管 CFTC 多年来一直反对此类合约。在拜登政府的最后几天,CFTC 要求这家数字货币交易所暂停合约交易,但 Crypto.com 拒绝了。
Kalshi followed suit with its own Super Bowl contracts shortly after Inauguration Day. The CFTC is currently reviewing Crypto.com’s contracts, and on Friday it sent letters to Crypto.com and Kalshi seeking information on why they consider their sports contracts legal.
在总统就职日后不久,Kalshi 也推出了自己的超级碗合约。CFTC 目前正在审查 Crypto.com 的合约,并于周五向 Crypto.com 和 Kalshi 发送了信函,要求提供其认为体育合约合法的理由。
“The CFTC made the right call in requesting Robinhood not to permit its customers to access sports-event contracts,” said Cantrell Dumas, director of derivatives policy at Better Markets, a nonprofit that advocates for tougher financial regulation. “These event contracts are wagers, not legitimate financial instruments.”
“CFTC 要求 Robinhood 不要允许其客户访问体育赛事合约的决定是正确的,”非营利组织 Better Markets(倡导更严格金融监管)的衍生品政策主管 Cantrell Dumas 表示。“这些赛事合约是赌注,而不是真正的金融工具。”
Betting contracts on the Super Bowl and coming basketball and hockey championships were still available for trading through Kalshi’s website on Tuesday afternoon, despite Robinhood’s decision to disable access to them on its own app.
尽管 Robinhood 决定在其应用程序上禁用这些合约,周二下午,Super Bowl 以及即将到来的篮球和冰球锦标赛的投注合约仍可通过 Kalshi 的网站进行交易。
With its abortive foray into Super Bowl contracts, Robinhood had sought to cash in on the growing bonanza of sports betting, just days before the most-watched championship in U.S. professional sports.
通过其对超级碗合约的尝试未果,Robinhood 试图在美国职业体育最受关注的冠军赛前几天,借助日益增长的体育博彩热潮获利。
Sports betting has exploded across the U.S. in recent years, driven by gambling companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports wagering. The American Gaming Association, the gambling industry trade group, said Tuesday that it expects Americans to legally wager $1.39 billion on this weekend’s Super Bowl alone.
近年来,体育博彩在美国迅速增长,由 DraftKings 和 FanDuel 等博彩公司推动。三十九个州和哥伦比亚特区已将体育博彩合法化。美国博彩协会,这一博彩行业贸易组织,周二表示,仅本周末的超级碗,美国人预计将合法投注 13.9 亿美元。
The trade group said Tuesday that it is “concerned with current efforts by certain trading platforms and digital exchanges to launch national sports-event contracts that appear to circumvent state regulatory frameworks” and called on the companies to stop offering sports-event contracts during the CFTC’s review period.
该贸易组织周二表示,“对某些交易平台和数字交易所当前推动推出全国性体育赛事合约的努力感到担忧,这些合约似乎规避了州监管框架”,并呼吁相关公司在 CFTC 审查期间停止提供体育赛事合约。
Gambling companies have been watching the rise of prediction-market offerings, weighing whether it represents a competitive threat or possibly opening the way to a new line of business. Kalshi has marketed its product in gambling terminology: “Bet on everything.”
博彩公司一直在关注预测市场产品的兴起,权衡其是否构成竞争威胁,或可能为新业务开辟道路。Kalshi 以博彩术语推广其产品:“押注一切。”
Some Robinhood users were thrilled to see the brokerage wade into the sports-betting world. Alexander Bittan, a 31-year-old investor based in New Jersey, asked Robinhood Chief Executive Vlad Tenev about making such a move during the company’s investor day in December.
一些 Robinhood 用户对这家经纪公司涉足体育博彩领域感到兴奋。居住在新泽西州的 31 岁投资者 Alexander Bittan 在公司 12 月的投资者日上询问 Robinhood 首席执行官 Vlad Tenev 是否会采取这样的举措。
“A lot of our customers…are interested in sports in general, so we’re keenly looking into that space,” Tenev responded.
“我们的许多客户……总体上对体育感兴趣,所以我们正在密切关注这一领域,”Tenev 回应道。
Bittan updated his app after the announcement this week to get access to the contracts as soon as they rolled out. He planned to put down about $5,000 on a Kansas City victory.
Bittan 在本周公告发布后更新了他的应用,以便在合约推出后尽快获取访问权限。他计划押注约 5,000 美元支持堪萨斯城获胜。
He was still waiting on access when the brokerage suspended trading of the contracts on Tuesday.
他仍在等待访问权限时,券商于周二暂停了这些合约的交易。
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “When you innovate fast, not everything is going to be allowed to be done and not everything will work.”
“这令人失望,”他说。“当你快速创新时,并非所有事情都被允许去做,也并非所有事情都会成功。”