How Robinhood built a prediction market business, with JB Mackenzie

Two years ago prediction markets at Robinhood meant one contract on one election. Now the host says the line is one of the broker's biggest. JB Mackenzie, Robinhood's VP and general manager of futures and prediction markets, tells the NEXTPredict Podcast how it happened and where the sector goes next.

In this episode

• Mackenzie says the team worked through the idea on a Sunday, launched a presidential election market three weeks later, and went all in after 500 million contracts traded (2:21, 2:32, 2:48).

• Robinhood wants relationships with multiple venues: he says US exchanges went from three to over 22 in two years, and he looks for clear rules, liquidity and pricing (8:02, 8:09, 8:18, 6:50).

• He expects consolidation, with players specialising by product or asset class (10:27, 10:32, 10:35).

• Politics and economics are where he sees the explosion, citing 15-minute crypto markets, oil, gold and Fed rate decisions (25:27, 25:37, 26:00).

• His biggest barrier is unclear regulatory guidance: as an FCM he follows different rules on onboarding and advertising than direct-to-exchange rivals (30:37, 30:47, 31:01).

• By 2029 he expects less talk of sports and more of financial and economic products (35:49, 35:55).

Episode from the NEXTPredict Podcast by NEXT.io, published on YouTube.