The federal green light has arrived for Novig.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday issued an Order of Designation to Ludlow Exchange, LLC -- the exchange entity of sports trading platform Novig -- officially clearing the company to operate as a designated contract market. The approval, which the company says represents one of the fastest designations of its kind in CFTC history, makes Novig only the second company to receive such clearance in the past week, following ProphetX, which obtained its own DCM and DCO approvals on June 11. The back-to-back designations signal an accelerating pace at the federal regulator after a prolonged logjam that at one point had up to 19 companies sitting in pending status.
For Novig CEO and co-founder Jacob Fortinsky, the designation is the culmination of everything he has been building toward -- and the starting line for what comes next.
"Novig is the best place to trade sports," Fortinsky said in a statement. "From day one, our vision has been to operate within a single national framework that raises the standard for the entire category. Novig is the first sports prediction market built by sports traders for sports traders, and the momentum we've seen to date reinforces that there is real demand for a more efficient, and ultimately more profitable way for sports fans to participate in sports markets. Federal oversight allows us to scale within a framework built on trust, transparency, and fairness. By aligning incentives with users and removing the structural disadvantages of legacy betting platforms, we're building a fundamentally different model where participants aren't playing against the house, but operating within a fair and transparent market."
Unlike Kalshi, Polymarket, or most of the incoming wave of federally regulated platforms, Novig is going sports-exclusive -- and that is a deliberate decision rooted in where the action already is. Sports contracts have accounted for as much as 80% of all trades on existing prediction market platforms at peak moments.
Kalshi first cracked open the sports prediction market door during last year's Super Bowl and has since built a robust sports offering -- but it was never built with the sports trader at its core.
Novig To Focus Fully On Sports Trades
The CFTC designation unlocks all 50 states under a single federal framework, alongside a set of safeguards more commonly associated with financial markets -- enhanced market surveillance, protections against manipulation and insider activity, and comprehensive compliance standards. The platform also carries a 21+ age requirement.
Several details in the CFTC's order underscore the structure Novig intends to bring to market. Ludlow offers an anonymous electronic central limit order book, with a non-intermediated trading model -- meaning the exchange will not permit any futures commission merchant to intermediate transactions or carry customer accounts. It is a direct-access, trader-to-trader architecture aligned with Novig's existing commission-free, peer-to-peer model.
The numbers coming in reflect a platform already building real velocity. The company says it has surpassed $5 billion in cumulative trading volume -- up from the $4 billion annualized figure reported at the time of its $75 million Series B round led by Pantera Capital in February, which brought total capital raised to more than $105 million.
A key competitive advantage Novig carries into the federally regulated space is proprietary technology. Many other prediction market apps rely on technology built by third parties -- an arrangement that involves revenue sharing and creates structural friction against innovation. Novig owns its stack outright, which Fortinsky has long identified as central to his competitive case.
The path to this moment was anything but direct. Novig operated as a betting exchange in New Jersey and Colorado before shifting to a sweepstakes gaming model using a dual-currency system. That model ran headlong into a mounting wave of state bans -- 11 states including New York, California and New Jersey have banned dual-currency platforms since the start of 2025 -- effectively closing the door on Novig's interim model and pushing the company toward 50-state play.
Novig The Latest Player To Enter Crowded PM Space
Fortinsky has long argued that federal oversight is the only rational framework for the space. "I think since the repeal of PASPA, it's become clear that states do a very poor job at overseeing this space," he told Bookies.com earlier this year. "It's better for consumers, it's better for the industry, it's better for innovation and technology."
The competition ahead is formidable. ProphetX, which holds both DCM and DCO status, intends to operate a vertically integrated marketplace where users can trade, clear, and settle contracts directly on its platform without routing settlement through a separate entity. Sporttrade is still awaiting its own approval. And the established giants -- Kalshi, recently valued at $22 billion, and Polymarket -- aren't standing still. Neither are the prediction platforms offered by FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics, or Underdog. And Polymarket has yet to fully make its U.S.-based platform available to all.
But Fortinsky has been counted out before.
"When we were launching our sweeps product, many people said to me, 'You're delusional if you think you're going to catch up to X company or Y company,'" he told RotoWire.com. "And four or five months later, we were significantly larger than those companies."
With the CFTC designation now official, that pattern is about to be tested on the biggest stage yet.
