Robinhood dangles World Cup tickets to boost Gold subscriber base

Robinhood dangles World Cup tickets to boost Gold subscriber base
Robinhood's World Cup sweepstakes and prediction market discounts are the fintech's latest push to grow its 4.3 million Gold subscribers.
JUN 24, 2026

Robinhood is offering trips valued at $20,000 to see the FIFA World Cup Final in New Jersey for winners of a sweepstakes open to Robinhood Gold subscribers.

The brokerage is offering 10 prize packages to attend the soccer championship scheduled for July 19 at MetLife Stadium, or as it is known for the duration of the World Cup, New York New Jersey stadium. Each of the 10 winners receive one VIP seat ticket to the match, a two-night hotel stay, a $700 airline voucher, and $200 rideshare credit, putting the total approximate retail value at $200,000 across the 10 prize winners.

To enter the sweepstakes via the Robinhood app, users must have a Robinhood brokerage account, be an active Robinhood Gold member, and be a legal U.S. resident at least 18 years old. Winners will be randomly selected with the promotion running June 9 through June 25.

Robinhood is offering 30 days free for those who sign up for its Gold membership, followed by a $5 monthly fee or $50 annual fee. Becoming a Gold member provides 3.75% APY on cash in a Robinhood brokerage account, a 3% match on self-directed IRAs, and AI-powered investment research insights.

In Robinhood’s Q1 2026 earnings report, the company said its number of Gold subscribers grew 36% year-over-year to 4.3 million, while Gold subscription revenues increased 32% to $50 million. The separate Robinhood Gold credit card, which is only available to Robinhood gold subscribers, has surpassed 800,000 cardholders since its launch in 2024. 

Prediction markets and the World Cup 

In addition to its World Cup final ticket sweepstakes, Robinhood is tying its prediction market odds for wagering on the soccer tournament into its Gold membership. 

“Gold members pay up to 50% lower fees on World Cup event contracts. That's it,” Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev wrote in a June 22 post on X. “Go watch the games.”

Ahead of the World Cup, Robinhood announced it was moving prediction market event contracts to Rothera, an exchange founded as a joint venture between Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group. The move effectively began Robinhood’s transition away from its existing prediction markets partner Kalshi.

“It ranges from some prediction bets I’ve got on the Inter Miami game going to the final championship, although they're small, all the way up to S&P 500 ETFs in there now,” investor Ryan Frankel said of his Robinhood account activity at the company’s TradePMR conference for RIAs held earlier this month. “It's probably a $500 bet, so it's not like I've made a massive bet on the game, but I probably check it as much as I do my portfolio.”

World Cup prediction markets from Robinhood let users wager on match winners, goal totals, group winners, will both teams score in a game, which player will win the Golden Boot, which team will be winning at halftime, and other tournament outcomes. As of June 23, Rothera has executed more than one billion World Cup contracts since the start of the tournament on June 11.

"We are sending a selection of World Cup contracts to Rothera (not all), so this is not indicative of the total volume on Robinhood," a communications representative for Robinhood told InvestmentNews. "It's also worth reiterating that prediction markets are only available to retail customers in the Robinhood app, they’re not available to RIAs on TradePMR." 

Fortune reports that trading volume on Kalshi has reached $2.9 billion in World Cup wagers with three weeks remaining in the tournament, already surpassing the firm’s $2.51 billion bet during the March Madness college basketball tournament. When also including activity on Polymarket, a reported $5.4 billion has thus far been bet across prediction market platforms for the World Cup. 

Schwab enters the prediction market arena

As Robinhood continues to push financial services boundaries with its prediction markets around sporting events, fellow brokerage giant Schwab is entering the arena as well with prediction markets tied to wagering on the performance of the S&P 500. The yes-or-no prediction market contracts will debut in partnership with Cboe Global Markets, while Schwab CEO Rick Wurster has previously said he sees a clear distinction between prediction markets and sports betting. 

“To me, prediction markets in the way they started were about being able to forecast things like employment or inflation, and being able to take a point of view or position on those that could somehow hedge or accentuate the positions in your investment portfolio,” Wurster told Bloomberg in January. “But I distinguish between that and sports gambling, and if you look at 95% of the volume of what people call prediction markets, [it] is actually just sports gambling. [...]  We'll leave that to the gambling houses—to the FanDuels, the DraftKings, and the Robinhoods.”

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