Novig Posts $125M in First-Week Trading as It Sues Five States Over Jurisdiction
The CFTC-regulated sports exchange topped $125M in its debut week while fighting New York, Massachusetts and three other states over gambling law claims.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited by the ON360 newsroom.
Sports-focused prediction market operator Novig generated more than $125 million in notional trading volume during its first week of nationwide operation, according to Gambling Insider, even as the company presses ahead with legal challenges against gambling regulators in five U.S. states.
Novig launched nationwide on August 4 after receiving approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate as a designated contract market, a federal licence that lets the company offer sports-related contracts outside traditional state-by-state gambling regulation. Co-founder and chief executive Jacob Fortinsky told CNBC that the platform’s busiest single day so far brought in $26.3 million in trading volume.
Parlays made up roughly a third of the opening week’s activity, with baseball wagering driving much of the trading, according to people familiar with the company’s operations. Novig said its first-week sports volume exceeded the opening-week figures posted by Kalshi, Polymarket US, Underdog and DraftKings’ DKeX prediction market arm, based on the company’s own calculations.
A Crowded and Fast-Growing Field
Novig’s debut lands in a prediction markets sector already moving billions of dollars a week. Dune Analytics data cited by Gambling Insider shows roughly $3.46 billion in taker volume across tracked platforms for the week of August 3, with Kalshi accounting for $2.48 billion, Polymarket $482.9 million and Polymarket US $378.8 million. The following week, total tracked volume rose to about $3.55 billion, including $2.52 billion at Kalshi.
Separate figures from Ticker Tracker, covering different reporting windows, put recent seven-day volumes at $157.3 million for Rothera, $78.4 million for Underdog, $37.8 million for PropvolhetX and $4.9 million for DraftKings. Fortinsky said Novig intends to stay narrowly focused rather than expand into financial or political markets like some rivals. “Our focus is on markets tied directly to sports and competition,” he said.
Novig was founded in 2021 as a sports betting exchange operating under a Colorado sports betting licence, then pivoted in 2024 to a sweepstakes-based social sportsbook before shifting again to the federally regulated prediction market model it now runs.
Five-State Legal Fight Intensifies
Alongside its commercial launch, Novig has sued New York, Massachusetts, Washington, New Mexico and Wisconsin, arguing the federal Commodity Exchange Act gives the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over its sports contracts and pre-empts state gambling laws. A federal judge in the Southern District of New York denied Novig’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the state from enforcing its gambling laws against the company.
The litigation echoes broader disputes playing out across the U.S. prediction markets sector, where operators such as Kalshi have similarly asserted federal pre-emption against state regulators. The outcome could determine whether Novig can sustain nationwide growth or whether individual states force it to restrict access.
Age Limits and Responsible Trading Tools
Novig has set a 21-and-over age requirement, a stricter threshold than the 18-plus standard generally permitted for federally regulated prediction markets. Last week, the company introduced a responsible trading framework that includes identity verification, deposit and loss limits, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion tools.
The U.S. prediction markets battle has no direct bearing on Canadian regulated gambling, where provinces such as Ontario licence and oversee sports betting and online casino operators through frameworks like iGaming Ontario. Still, the jurisdictional fight over whether sports-linked contracts count as gambling or federally regulated derivatives is being watched closely across North America’s wider betting industry.
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