Robinhood Pauses Sports Event Contracts in Michigan
Robinhood agreed to stop offering new sports-related event contracts to its Michigan customers by the end of business on September 10, following a request from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office. Under the agreement, Robinhood will also close out all outstanding Michigan customer positions in those contracts by October 9. The move covers sports contracts traded through exchanges operated by KalshiEX and Rothera Exchange and Clearing, both of which list their event contracts through Robinhood's platform.
Why Robinhood agreed to pause
The request followed a state court's preliminary injunction against Kalshi in Nessel v. KalshiEX, which had already forced Kalshi itself to geofence sports-related contracts out of Michigan. Rather than fight a separate enforcement action, Robinhood sought time from the AG's office to notify its Michigan customers and wind down existing positions in an orderly way, landing on the September 10 cutoff for new contracts and an October 9 deadline to fully close out what customers already hold.
What the agreement does — and doesn't — settle
The pause is a voluntary compliance step tied to ongoing litigation, not a resolution of the underlying legal fight. The core question — whether states like Michigan can regulate CFTC-registered prediction market contracts as gambling, or whether federal commodities law preempts that authority — remains unresolved and is still being litigated on appeal. Robinhood's approach differs from Kalshi's in one respect: Kalshi was compelled by a direct court injunction, while Robinhood's pause is a negotiated agreement reached while its own appeal options remain open.
Why it matters
Michigan is now the second front, after Kalshi, where a prediction market platform has pulled sports contracts from the state rather than continue operating through active litigation, and Robinhood's move gives Nessel's office a template it could look to use with other platforms offering similar contracts in Michigan. For bettors and traders in the state, the practical effect is straightforward: new sports-related contracts are no longer available on Robinhood as of September 10, and any open positions need to be closed by October 9, regardless of how the broader legal question between states and federally regulated exchanges is ultimately resolved.