Robinhood is expanding its prediction markets offerings, defying critics and plunging ahead despite looming uncertainty over the regulatory future of event contracts.

• 🤝 The investment app signed a multiyear deal to route event contract volume through the derivatives exchange and clearinghouse of Crypto.com spinoff OG.com.
• Robinhood will get a stake in both businesses after the spinoff.

💰 Flashback: Citadel Securities backed Crypto.com this summer, valuing it at $20 billion, including a $5 billion valuation for OG.com.

↔️ The intrigue: The deal reflects Robinhood's bid to diversify its prediction market strategy.

• The firm last year launched a prediction markets hub with Kalshi floating the contracts, including sports.
• Robinhood will continue to route contracts to Kalshi, plus ForecastEX and Rothera, The Block reports — but the Crypto.com deal gives it an incentive to shift more volume toward its new portfolio company.
• A Kalshi spokesperson said the deal doesn't affect its arrangement with Robinhood.

⚠️ Friction point: Critics say placing prediction markets alongside conventional investment opportunities creates a slippery slope for retail investors.

• "A bet on a football game does not become an investment simply because it appears next to your retirement account," Mick Mulvaney, executive director of the Gambling is Not Investing coalition, said in an emailed statement.
• Supporters say that prediction markets are a legitimate financial product regulated by the CFTC.

⚖️ What we're watching: Whether the Supreme Court opts to decide if prediction markets should be regulated by the CFTC or by state gaming commissions.

• If the court takes the case and sides with the states, it could create a major roadblock for Robinhood and others offering event contracts to customers.

Go deeper

Oil prices rose again today, with Brent crude, the international benchmark, trading this afternoon above $99 a barrel, a level last hit in late July, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

• The latest jump was sparked by an attack on Saudi energy facilities by Houthi rebels, though crude has been climbing since early August as the Middle East conflict triggers worries about global supplies.

🤔 Yes, but: With tensions raging all summer over the Strait of Hormuz, why the sudden surge in prices now?

🗣️ What they're saying: Rapidan Energy Group president Bob McNally offered a three-part answer in an interview with CNBC today:

1. China is ramping up crude imports, adding pressure on supplies.
2. Supplies have been bolstered by releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which are set to wind down.
3. McNally described a boy-who-cried-wolf situation in reverse: An "entrenched optimism bias" has persisted all summer, with investors believing peace was "just around the corner," he said. Now, that optimism is starting to fade.

⛳️ LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today, saying it has secured a restructuring support agreement from an arm of BC Partners to reorganize operations and emerge "majority owned by players." (Axios)

📊 Qualcomm shares jumped after the company announced a data center infrastructure partnership with Amazon Web Services. It's a concrete vote of confidence in its new focus on AI processors. (CNBC)

🚙 Ford received a letter from the Trump administration expressing "profound concern" about the automaker's ties to Chinese companies. (Reuters)

👾 AI coding startup Cognition raised $2 billion in a deal that values the maker of engineering agent Devin at $48 billion. (Bloomberg)

Two new buzzy movie trailers provide a glimpse at how Hollywood is set to depict two major business stories:

🩸"You Can See Everything": The once-secret documentary — which chronicles Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in her final days before going to prison — premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and hits theaters in October.

• A teaser trailer released online yesterday shows an awkward interview with co-director Nathan Fielder as she defends her actions.

💼 "Artificial": The movie starring Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman tracks the OpenAI co-founder's firing and rehiring in 2023, when ChatGPT was still in its nascent phases.

• "We don't teach it. It teaches itself," someone says in the trailer released online today.

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: I'll have to see both of these, if only to keep up with the conversation!