Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev made an appearance Tuesday morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box program. During the interview, the entrepreneur addressed questions about the platform’s sports-based event contracts as well as the use of AI tools among both institutional and retail traders. Tenev’s dialogue with CNBC hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin and Melissa Lee occurred one week after Robinhood released its Q1-2026 earnings.
The main takeaway from the 8-minute video segment is that Tenev, a mathematics graduate at the University of Stanford, believes the realms of sports and finance are combining within the United States. “Sports, I believe, is going to be an increasing chunk of the business and finance world,” the Robinhood co-founder told Sorkin. “They’re starting to increasingly converge.”
One of the main reasons for this convergence, according to Tenev, is that athletic sports contests represent a part of human society that investors feel a “high confidence” towards – regarding it as immune from artificial intelligence. “I don’t want to watch self-driving cars racing around the track,” added the chairman.
Despite being pressed on the original “intent” of Congress when it passed laws stemming from the trading of derivatives, Tenev opted to focus on Robinhood’s portfolio of banking products. The exchange is hailing Trump Accounts along with its surging “Gold” subscriber base as part of its status as a “financial super app.”
At the beginning of the video, CNBC sources a recent statement by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Selig, who chairs the federal agency, admitted that he does foresee the debate over prediction market regulations potentially “going to the Supreme Court.”
The CFTC has, up to this point, filed legal complaints against five states (Connecticut, Arizona, New York, Wisconsin, and Illinois) that are attempting to enforce their own gambling laws against event contracts offered by Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket, Kalshi, and Crypto-dot-com. Just last week, Selig filed suit in Milwaukee against the state of Wisconsin, arguing that the federal government has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction market derivatives, trades, and swaps.
On May 5th, the Arizona District Court granted Kalshi injunctive relief from 20 misdemeanor counts brought forth by AZ Attorney General Kristin Mayes. In the ruling, US District Judge Michael T. Liburdi concluded that “federal law preempts state gambling laws.”
However, US Circuit Courts may eventually “split” over the issue. This would result in the regulation of prediction markets being heard by the US Supreme Court, if it decides to accept one or more cases concerning the ongoing debate of whether prediction markets offer sports-related “trades” or “bets” to their users.
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