There's an old saying that the house always wins. And judging by Friday's trading session, Cboe Global Markets is making a pretty convincing case for it.

While the Nasdaq tanked nearly 3% and the S&P 500 shed 1.8%, Cboe shares rose 3.5% after the exchange operator reported a 36% jump in quarterly profits. Investors are scrambling to bet on where stocks go next, and Cboe is collecting a fee every time they do.

The Chicago-based company reported adjusted earnings of $3.63 a share on net revenue of $712.2 million, beating expectations of $3.43 a share and $707.69 million. Revenue increased 18% from a year earlier, while adjusted earnings leaped from $2.67 a share.

Much of that growth can be traced to a rather unusual corner of the market, where investors are buying contracts that could be worth a fortune in the morning and absolutely nothing by 4 p.m.

I'm talking about 0DTE options. Ever heard of them?

Short for zero-days-to-expiration, these increasingly popular contracts expire the same day they're traded, giving investors just a few hours to bet on where stocks are headed before the clock runs out.

Of course, the trade-off is that those positions can lose their entire value in a matter of hours.

For Cboe, however, the outcome of any individual trade is largely beside the point. The company earns transaction fees whenever investors buy and sell contracts, regardless of whether those bets pay off.

And the volume of those bets keeps growing.

Average daily options volume reached 21.3 million contracts during the third quarter, up 14% from 18.8 million a year earlier. Trading in index options tied to benchmarks such as the S&P 500 grew even faster, skyrocketing 24% to about 6.05 million contracts per day.

"Net revenue in our Derivatives business rose 22%, driven by a 24% increase in index options average daily volume supported by record 0DTE activity," CEO Craig Donohue said.

And the good news for Cboe doesn't stop at higher trading volumes. The exchange is also making more money on each contract, with average revenue climbing 9% to 30.7 cents. 

And some of those contracts are worth a whole lot more to Cboe than others. Index options brought in roughly 95.2 cents apiece, compared with a measly 5.2 cents for options tied to individual stocks and ETFs. 

That difference helps explain why the growing popularity of S&P 500 options has been so lucrative. While overall options volume increased 14%, options revenue jumped 23% to $469.5 million.

In fact, business has been so good that management is now expecting an even stronger year than originally anticipated.

Cboe raised its 2026 organic net revenue growth forecast to the high teens, up from its previous estimate of mid-to-high teens growth. The company also lowered its projected adjusted operating expenses to between $830 million and $845 million.

And if investors haven't found enough ways to bet on the market already, Cboe has a few more in the works.

Starting in November, the company plans to launch event contracts tied to performance indicators at 23 publicly traded companies, allowing investors to place bets on specific corporate outcomes.

Meanwhile, Cboe also extended its exclusive licensing agreement with S&P Dow Jones Indices through 2051, securing another 25 years of rights to key products tied to the S&P 500 and VIX volatility index.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.