Is Robinhood legal in California?

Not the state. Three tribes, Blue Lake Rancheria, Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians and Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, filed the complaint on July 22, 2025 in the Northern District of California (No. 3:25-cv-06162-JSC). It names Kalshi Inc., KalshiEX LLC, Robinhood Markets, Inc. and Robinhood Derivatives LLC (p.1). The complaint calls Robinhood Derivatives the futures commission merchant that partnered with Kalshi to offer a prediction market hub, and Robinhood Markets its Menlo Park parent (pp.6-7, ¶¶14-15).

Both Robinhood companies are still defendants. The parties' joint status report of October 14, 2026 lists them in its caption (ECF 101, p.2), and its counsel blocks list their lawyers as attorneys for both (pp.1, 9).

We found no announcement naming Robinhood on the California Attorney General's news page or on its Bureau of Gambling Control page. We could not read the Gambling Control Commission's site.

The complaint brings five claims: the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), the tribes' gaming ordinances, civil RICO, infringement of tribal sovereignty, and false advertising under the Lanham Act (pp.36-55). Only one, RICO, is brought against Robinhood, as Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley recorded when she paused the case on May 22, 2026 (ECF 87, p.2). The RICO claim calls the defendants' contracts an unlawful "Gaming Racket" (p.2).

Robinhood's answer, in a May 1 brief, is that the claim fails for reasons apart from federal preemption: the tribes lack statutory standing under RICO and do not plead the enterprise RICO requires (p.3). What they describe, it says, is "the customary relationship between any CFTC-designated contract market ("DCM") and futures commission merchant ("FCM")" (p.7).

The tribes say they first understood futures commission merchants such as Robinhood to be "merely brokers", and now have evidence that they "are central to the operation of a Designated Contract Market" like Kalshi (ECF 101, p.4). They want the same relief against Robinhood as against Kalshi, under IGRA, their ordinances and their compacts (p.4). Robinhood told the court it expected to oppose that amendment (p.6).

Judge Corley denied the tribes a preliminary injunction on November 10, 2025 (ECF 71, p.13). The injunction they sought named Kalshi alone (p.1). On September 16, 2026 the Ninth Circuit reversed in part (opinion), holding the tribes likely to succeed on their claims that Kalshi's event contracts on tribal lands violate IGRA and the tribes' gaming ordinances (p.9). Robinhood was an appellee; the opinion calls it "a retail distributor for Kalshi's products" (p.8). The joint status report says the mandate issued on October 8 (ECF 101, p.3).

On October 21, 2026 Judge Corley ordered the parties to "meet and confer to discuss a potential stipulation on geofencing, which would remain in effect until further Court order" (p.1). That directs talks; it does not order geofencing. The same order let the tribes add a plaintiff (Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, per ECF 101, p.2), granted the amendment they had previewed on October 14, set the amended complaint for November 4, and terminated the defendants' motions to dismiss, Dkt. 67 and 68, without prejudice (p.1); Robinhood's is Dkt. 68 (ECF 84, p.5). The next conference is at 2:00 pm on November 4, with a joint statement due at noon on November 3. We could not read filings after October 21, so we can't say whether a stipulation has been filed.

No order we found limits Robinhood customers in California, on tribal land or off it. Robinhood's event contract restrictions page, read October 26, 2026, lists Maryland and Nevada under state restrictions and says nothing about California or tribal land.

The geofencing in the record is Kalshi's. Kalshi told the court that, working with GeoComply, it had taken steps so that people on the tribes' Indian lands "should not be able to trade sports event contracts on Kalshi's app or website" (ECF 101, p.5). The tribes say that after Kalshi first told the court this, a member of the Blue Lake Rancheria Gaming Commission placed a trade on the Kalshi app on the reservation (p.3). The report does not say whether Kalshi's measures reach orders placed through Robinhood. Nothing we read addresses withdrawals, deposits or open positions.

Robinhood's quarterly report for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 describes a customer class action filed against Robinhood Markets and Robinhood Derivatives in the same federal court on April 22, 2026. It says the plaintiffs claim Robinhood's sports-related event contracts violate California's Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, along with other states' laws. Three related suits filed in June were consolidated with it, and Robinhood has moved to compel most of the plaintiffs to arbitration, the report says. We have not read that docket, so we don't describe it further.

Robinhood's own preemption case before the same appeals court is on Robinhood in Nevada, Kalshi's side of the tribal case is on Kalshi in California, and every other state is on Robinhood's legal status page.

The tribal suit asks whether sports contracts entered on tribal land are gaming only the tribes may offer, and a court ruling on that question is a ruling on gaming law, not a tax ruling. How each of the common filing routes applies to a Robinhood event contracts year is in Robinhood event contracts taxes.