It’s all about framing.
Distribution is not just access. It is positioning.
A lot of my friends are betting on the World Cup. But instead of using Kalshi or Polymarket, they’re placing bets through investing app Robinhood.
In 2025, Robinhood partnered with Kalshi to offer Kalshi’s prediction markets within Robinhood. For Robinhood, the logic was obvious: it wanted to enter the betting category without waiting for regulatory approvals. Partnering with Kalshi provided a fast route to market.
In return, Kalshi gets access to Robinhood’s customer base. Both companies might be benefitting from a second-order effect: larger bets.
A friend who uses both Kalshi and Robinhood remarked that he consistently wagers far more through Robinhood than through Kalshi. On Kalshi, he’ll bet tens of dollars. On Robinhood? Sometimes thousands.
His explanation:
“I am used to buying stocks on Robinhood. It’s not weird to put $1,000 into a stock or ETF. No one is concerned when you put thousands in, say, a Charles Schwab account. But transferring thousands into a Kalshi account? Feels reckless. Even if you’re making the same bet.”
Robinhood is not just a distribution channel for Kalshi. It’s framing. It reframes betting as another investment decision. And it offers Kalshi access to customers’ investment-sized balances. For a marketplace that earns a spread on trading volume, this is an incredibly valuable shift.
Less than a year in, Robinhood reported driving more than 50% of Kalshi’s trading volume.
To me, that spurs a strategic question: Which partner is more valuable, the regulatory-approved product, or the framing that shapes how people perceive it?
Products can be replicated. Or bought. Distribution and mental associations are much harder to copy.
This question is playing out in real time. In January, Robinhood acquired CFTC-regulated betting platform MIAXdx, a move intended to help Robinhood become independent from Kalshi and potentially take 100% of spreads later in 2026. What does that mean for Kalshi? Time will tell. But Robinhood’s locked-in audience and investor-positioning offer a killer combination of framing and distribution that will make it tough for Kalshi to compete without a meaningfully different product.
Framing as a business strategy happens across categories.
When Apple launched its Apple Watch with Hermès as its first brand partner, it told the world, we’re framing this not as a competitor to Samsung’s smart watches, but as an alternative to your luxury watch.
New Balance’s partnerships with Stone Island, Miu Miu and Kith reframed the brand from dad sneaker to fashion brand.
Vacation dresses at the Farm Rio store feel like luxury fashion and less so when the same dress is on a rack at the Carnival Cruise gift store. Mentally, it’s not the same dress. Even if it is.
Brands often obsess over product. And they should. Good product is table stakes.
But as products get easier to make and copy (particularly with AI-enabled design and manufacturing), the competitive advantage shifts toward distribution and framing. What does your brand convey that a competitor cannot? Which audiences do you uniquely own? And who can you partner with (influencers, retailers, brand partners) to both expand your reach and build associations that reframe your product into something bigger?