Robinhood Supreme Court petition left off first 2026-27 term docket
The Supreme Court released its first 2026-27 term docket on October 3 without granting review to any prediction market cases. Robinhood had filed a petition asking the Court to review a Ninth Circuit decision that complicated the legal status of sports event contracts. The petition seeks to overturn that ruling. Robinhood's petition joined others from New Jersey and Crypto.com pursuing federal preemption of state gambling laws.
Denied cert at this stage means Robinhood's traders keep operating under a state-by-state legal patchwork that shifts with borders, not regulation. The Ninth Circuit ruling against Robinhood stands, and the same gambling-framing theory has already cost Kalshi preemption fights in Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee. Every month of delay risks another state attorney general copying those wins.
Robinhood now faces parallel legal spend on three fronts: federal rule comments, state court defense, and possible product redesign. The platform must choose between costly geofencing and waiting for a future cert grant that may never come. The first operator to lose another major state case becomes the template every competitor races to copy.