Robinhood Launches Presidential Election Betting Market Allowing Users To Wager On Harris And Trump

• Robinhood announced U.S. citizens will be able to buy derivative contracts betting on whether Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will prevail on Election Day, contracts which are priced between $0.02 and $0.99 at close to the market-implied percentage odds of victory for each candidate, earning a $1 payout if the user correctly chooses the next president.
• Users can buy a maximum of 5,000 election contracts, company spokesperson Christina Trejo told Forbes, meaning Robinhood users can score up to a $5,000 payout if they pick the winning side.
• The hours of operation for Robinhood’s presidential election betting market will slowly ramp up heading into next Tuesday’s election, with trading open 8 a.m. EDT to 8 p.m. EDT the next two days before going almost continuously from Sunday through Friday, Nov. 8.
• The contracts will pay out Jan. 7-8, 2025.

KEY BACKGROUND

Robinhood is perhaps the most recognizable firm to launch election betting, joining the likes of prediction market companies Polymarket, Kalshi and PredictIt. Election betting has become a major talking point this presidential election, earning a shoutout from Trump earlier this month, though the regulator Commodity Futures Trading Commission has expressed concerns the wagers may “threaten election integrity” as voters may be wrongly incentivized to support a certain candidate due to their bets, though a federal court recently ruled against the CFTC in a case against Kalshi. Unlike Kalshi, PredictIt and Robinhood, the blockchain-based Polymarket operates offshore, only taking bets from non-U.S. residents. That means it does not have the relatively low limits on individual users, and one French national has almost $30 million riding on a Trump victory on Polymarket.

BIG NUMBER

62%. That’s the odds of a Trump win priced in across major betting markets, according to the site Election Betting Odds. That’s higher than the poll-based prediction models like FiveThirtyEight’s, which gives Trump a 54% chance at victory, and Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin, which prices Trump at 52.9%.

TANGENT

So if the Robinhood market opens with a 62% chance of a Trump win, that means that users could buy Trump contracts at $0.62 apiece and Harris contracts at $0.38, scoring $1 a pop if their pick becomes president, netting a roughly 60% return on investment if Trump wins and 160% if Harris does.