| Founded | 2022 |
| Headquarters | New York, NY |
| Exchange entity | Ludlow Exchange LLC |
| Regulation | CFTC-designated contract market (DCM), designated June 16, 2026 |
| Settlement currency | US dollars |
| US availability | 47 states plus Washington DC — not Arizona, Michigan or Nevada |
| International availability | None |
| Age requirement | 21+ |
| Minimum deposit | $1 by online bank transfer |
| Trading fees | No commission for retail traders; cost is the bid-ask spread |
| Deposit methods | Trustly, Aeropay |
| Withdrawal fees | None |
| Mobile app | Yes, iOS and Android |
| Annualised volume | Over $4 billion |
| Total users | Not publicly disclosed |
| Total funding | Over $106 million across 8 rounds |
| Valuation | $500 million (February 2026) |
| Key investors | Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, Makers Fund, Edge Equity, Forerunner Ventures, Perceptive Ventures, NFX, Y Combinator |
| Native token | None |
What Is Novig?
Novig is a sports-only prediction market that lets you trade event contracts against other users instead of against a house, and charges you nothing to do it.
The company was founded by Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah, who met at Harvard playing poker with a group of quantitatively minded students. The origin story matters here because it explains the product. Fortinsky watched friends build sports models that genuinely beat the closing line, then watched traditional sportsbooks limit their stakes or close their accounts outright for the crime of winning. A sportsbook makes money on the spread between what it charges and what an outcome is worth, so a customer who is consistently right is a customer it does not want. An exchange does not have that problem: it makes money regardless of who wins, because it is matching two users rather than taking the other side.
Novig has raised more than $106 million across eight rounds. The seed was $6.4 million at roughly a $33 million post-money valuation; the February 2026 Series B was $75 million led by Pantera Capital, with Multicoin Capital, Makers Fund, Edge Equity and existing backers Forerunner Ventures, Perceptive Ventures and NFX participating, valuing the company at $500 million. Y Combinator backed the company early.
The regulatory turn came on June 16, 2026, when the CFTC designated Novig's entity, Ludlow Exchange LLC, as a designated contract market. That is the same category of federal licence Kalshi holds, and it is the thing that changed Novig from a state-by-state problem into a national product. Rather than chasing gaming licences in fifty jurisdictions, Novig now lists sports event contracts under federal derivatives rules. It relaunched nationwide on August 4, 2026 on that basis.
Traction followed. Annualised trading volume now exceeds $4 billion, after roughly tenfold growth during 2025. On July 30, 2026 the New York Mets named Novig their Exclusive Official Prediction Market Partner — the first deal of its kind between an MLB franchise and a prediction market, covering signage at Citi Field, broadcast integrations and digital activations.
What makes Novig different from the two platforms that dominate this category is narrow focus and a fee schedule of zero. It does one thing, and it does not charge you for it. Whether that trade is worth making depends entirely on what you want to trade, which is what the rest of this review works through. If you are new to the category, our guide to how prediction markets work covers the contract mechanics this review assumes.
How Does Novig Work?
The Basics
Every market on Novig is a contract that settles at $1 if the event happens and $0 if it does not. Buy the Chiefs to win at 40¢ and you are risking 40¢ to make 60¢. If they win, your contract settles at $1 and your profit is 60¢ on a 40¢ stake. If they lose, you are out the 40¢. The price is the market's implied probability: 40¢ means the market thinks there is a 40% chance.
That is identical in structure to Kalshi and Polymarket. What differs is how the price gets set and what it costs you to transact.
Placing a Trade
Novig runs a central limit order book. You have two ways in. You can take the price already posted — hit the offer, get filled immediately at whatever someone else is willing to trade at. Or you can post your own price and size and wait for someone to take it. Posting is where the exchange model earns its keep: if you think the Chiefs should be 43¢ and the book is offering 40¢, you can sit at 41¢ and let the market come to you.
This matters more than it sounds. On a sportsbook, the line is the line. On an exchange, you are one of the participants setting it, which means a disciplined trader can systematically buy better prices than a casual one. It also means you can get no fill at all if your price is wrong.
Order Types
Novig supports market and limit orders. Limit orders are the reason to be here — they let you set your own price rather than paying whatever the top of book is. Beyond that the order types are deliberately simple; this is not a venue built for complex conditional structures, and there is no public API tier aimed at algorithmic traders, unlike the setup covered in our piece on AI trading bots in prediction markets.
Deposits
Funding is dollars, not crypto. Novig supports Trustly and Aeropay, both of which link directly to a US bank account, and the minimum deposit by online bank transfer is $1. There are no withdrawal fees, though some deposit methods may carry a charge on the processor's side.
There is no wallet to set up, no stablecoin to acquire, no chain to bridge. If the crypto onboarding is what has kept you away from this category, Novig removes it entirely — the same advantage Kalshi has, and the opposite of the flow described in our Polymarket deposit guide.
Novig also runs a rewards programme called Novig Cash, which lets you accumulate a balance without depositing at all. That is unusual, and it is a reasonable way to see whether you like the product before funding it.
What Markets Can You Trade on Novig?
Sports
Sports is the entire product. Novig lists NFL, MLB, MLS, WNBA, ATP and WTA tennis, PGA Tour golf and UFC. Within those leagues you get game winners, spreads, totals and a range of futures.
The depth within those eight leagues is real — $4 billion annualised does not happen on an empty book — but it is concentrated. NFL and MLB carry the volume. A Tuesday-night WNBA game or a first-round ATP match will have a thinner book than the equivalent market on Kalshi, which runs a wider sports catalogue alongside everything else it lists.
Politics and Elections
None. Novig lists no political markets at all.
This is the single biggest thing to understand about the platform. The 2028 nomination books that carry hundreds of millions of dollars on Polymarket and Kalshi simply do not exist here. If elections are why you are interested in prediction markets, Novig is not the venue, and our Polymarket vs Kalshi comparison is the more useful read.
Crypto and Finance
None. No Bitcoin price contracts, no Fed decision markets, no economic indicators.
Culture, Tech, and Everything Else
None. No awards markets, no Nobel Prize contracts, no novelty questions about whether aliens exist.
The catalogue is eight sports leagues. That is not an oversight or a phased rollout — it is the strategy. Novig is competing on being the best place to trade sports rather than the place to trade everything, which is a defensible position given that sports drive more than 80% of all prediction market volume. It does mean that anyone wanting a single account for the whole category will need a second one. Our roundup of the best prediction market apps covers how the venues divide up.
Novig Fees: What Do You Actually Pay?
Trading Fees
Zero. Novig charges retail traders no commission on exchange orders.
That is not a promotional rate or an introductory period — it is the model. Your cost of trading is the bid-ask spread, which is what you pay to whoever is on the other side of your order, not to the platform. Post a limit order and get filled at your price, and the platform has taken nothing from you at all.
This is the most aggressive fee structure in the category by a clear margin, and it is the strongest argument for using Novig.
Deposit and Withdrawal Fees
Withdrawals are free. Deposits are free on the standard bank transfer rails, though individual processors may apply their own charges. There is no gas, no bridging cost and no stablecoin conversion, because there is no crypto in the flow.
Interest or Yield on Balances
None. Novig pays nothing on cash sitting idle in your account.
This is a genuine gap against Kalshi, which pays roughly 4% APY on uninvested cash. If you hold large positions for months, that difference compounds into real money and can outweigh a commission advantage — the maths is worked through in our Kalshi fees explainer.
Comparison Table
| Fee Type | Novig | Polymarket | Kalshi |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taker fee | None | 0.75–1.80% by category | ~$0.02 per contract |
| Maker fee | None | None, with 20–50% rebates | ~$0.02 per contract |
| Deposit | Free (bank transfer) | Gas plus on-ramp costs | Free |
| Withdrawal | Free | Gas | Free |
| Interest on idle cash | None | None | ~4% APY |
| Settlement | USD | USDC on Polygon | USD |
On a $100 trade at 50% probability, Novig charges approximately $0. Polymarket's taker fee on the same trade runs roughly $0.75 to $1.80 depending on category, and Kalshi takes around $2 on 100 contracts. For a high-frequency sports trader, that difference is the entire argument.
The business model question is fair to ask: if the platform takes nothing, how does it make money? Novig is venture-funded and buying market share, exactly as Predict.fun is doing with its own zero-fee approach. The honest answer is that the current fee schedule is a growth strategy backed by $106 million, not a permanent state of the world, and it is reasonable to expect monetisation to arrive at some point — most likely through market-making, premium tiers or institutional flow rather than retail commissions.
Novig User Experience and Interface
Novig is a mobile product first. The app is available on iOS and Android and is where the company has put its design effort — it reads like a modern trading app rather than a sportsbook, with the order book visible and limit orders a first-class action rather than something buried in a submenu.
The desktop web experience works but is clearly the secondary surface. If you are used to running multiple markets across a wide monitor the way Polymarket traders do, this will feel constrained.
There is no demo or paper-trading mode, though Novig Cash partially covers that ground by letting you build a balance through the rewards programme without depositing.
Support runs through in-app chat and email. Response quality has been reasonable by the standards of a company this size, but there is no phone line and no dedicated account management.
The honest criticisms: the eight-league catalogue means the app often looks empty outside peak sports hours, which makes it feel smaller than the $4 billion volume figure suggests. Limit orders on thinner markets can sit unfilled for a long time without any indication of how far off your price is. And the absence of a public API shuts out exactly the quantitative traders the founding story says the platform was built to welcome.
Novig's Regulatory Position
Novig operates through Ludlow Exchange LLC, which the CFTC designated as a designated contract market on June 16, 2026. That is a full federal exchange licence, the same classification Kalshi holds, and it is materially stronger than operating under a state gaming licence or an offshore registration.
The practical consequence is national reach without state-by-state approval. Sports event contracts listed under federal derivatives rules are regulated by the CFTC rather than by state gaming regulators, which is what let Novig go from a limited footprint to 47 states plus DC in a single relaunch on August 4, 2026.
It is not universal. Arizona, Michigan and Nevada are excluded, and the minimum age is 21 rather than the 18 that applies on some venues. Several states have been actively contesting whether sports event contracts belong under federal jurisdiction at all, and Novig sits squarely inside that fight — the current state of it is covered in our guide to prediction market legality in the US.
Against competitors, this puts Novig in the top regulatory tier alongside Kalshi and above the venues operating without a DCM. The company has also published a responsible trading framework, which is more than most of this category has bothered with.
Novig's Growth in Numbers
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| Annualised trading volume | Over $4 billion |
| Volume growth during 2025 | Roughly 10x |
| Total funding | Over $106 million |
| Valuation | $500 million (Feb 2026) |
| States available | 47 plus DC |
| Leagues covered | 8 |
Two caveats on reading these. Annualised volume extrapolates from a recent period rather than counting a completed year, and on an exchange every matched trade has two sides, so headline volume figures across this whole category tend to flatter. The $4 billion is real in the sense that it reflects genuine matched activity, but it is not directly comparable to a sportsbook's handle.
The growth trajectory is the more meaningful number. Tenfold volume growth in a year, followed by a federal licence and an MLB team partnership, describes a company that is being taken seriously by counterparties who do diligence.
Sydney Sweeney and the Novig Ad Campaign
On September 9, 2026, Novig ran its first national brand campaign and managed something no prediction market had before: it got the entire sports world arguing about a company most people had never heard of.
The Novig ad features Sydney Sweeney nude, with sports equipment placed over her body, under the line "is just sports." The Instagram reel took 37 million views in four days. Novig did not buy that reach — the campaign travelled because people shared it to complain about it, which is a cheaper distribution model than any media plan and was almost certainly the point.
Sweeney is not a hired face. She holds equity in Novig, and by CEO Jacob Fortinsky's own account she approached him about an equity partnership rather than the other way round. She was also hands-on with the creative: Fortinsky has said publicly that she drove the visuals and the messaging, and a source close to the production described her overseeing the music, guiding camera angles and shot coverage, and revising the script. Whatever you think of the result, it is hers.
The backlash
The sharpest criticism came from the people the campaign was nominally about. Olympic swimming champion Ariarne Titmus called it "a kick in the face." Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer called the hypersexualised framing "very damaging, especially for young females getting into sport." British sprinter Amy Hunt answered with her own version — "this is what women in sport looks like," over muscles, hard work, sweat, blood and tears — and female athletes turned that line into a countercampaign that outran the original in some feeds.
The objection is worth stating precisely, because it is not simply that the ad is sexual. It is that the sports equipment is ornamental. A basketball held as a prop by a figure presented as decorative sits awkwardly in a category whose entire appeal is movement and mastery, and it lands differently in a year when women's sport is finally being watched on its own terms rather than as a novelty.
What it tells you about the platform
Two things, and they pull in opposite directions.
The campaign worked as customer acquisition. A company at a $500 million valuation, competing against Kalshi and Polymarket at twenty to forty times that, bought national name recognition for the cost of one shoot. Novig is sports-only and needs sports fans specifically; it reached them.
It also tells you Novig is spending on attention rather than on liquidity. The gap between this platform and the leaders is not awareness — it is depth outside NFL and MLB, and the absence of politics, economics and crypto markets entirely. A viral campaign does not thicken an order book. If you are choosing where to trade, the ad is the least relevant thing on this page: the zero commission is the real argument, and thin books on secondary leagues are the real limitation.
One practical note. Novig is a federally regulated exchange with a 21+ requirement and a published responsible trading framework, and it ran a campaign engineered to travel among people who were not looking for a trading app. Those two facts sit uneasily together, and regulators contesting whether sports event contracts belong under CFTC jurisdiction rather than state gaming law now have a very visible exhibit — see our guide to prediction market legality.
Novig vs. Established Platforms
| Novig | Polymarket | Kalshi | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Sports traders who want zero fees | Breadth and liquidity | Regulated US access across categories |
| Regulation | CFTC DCM (Ludlow Exchange) | CFTC-licensed via acquisition | CFTC DCM |
| Settlement | USD | USDC on Polygon | USD |
| Deposits | Bank transfer, $1 minimum | Crypto wallet, USDC | Bank transfer |
| Trading fees | None | 0.75–1.80% taker | ~$0.02 per contract |
| Yield on idle cash | None | None | ~4% APY |
| Liquidity depth | Good in NFL and MLB, thin elsewhere | Deepest in the category | Deep across categories |
| Sports coverage | 8 leagues, sports only | Broad | Broad |
| Politics coverage | None | Deepest available | Deep |
| Mobile app | Yes, mobile-first | Yes | Yes |
| Onboarding difficulty | Low | High (crypto) | Low |
The comparison resolves cleanly along one axis: scope. Novig wins outright on cost and matches Kalshi on regulatory standing, but it competes in one category while the other two compete in all of them. If your trading is entirely NFL and MLB, Novig's zero commission is worth more to you over a season than anything Kalshi or Polymarket offers, and the dollar onboarding beats Polymarket's wallet flow on convenience.
If you trade anything else — elections, rate decisions, crypto levels, awards — Novig cannot serve you at all, and the question is not which platform is better but which second account you open. For most people the answer is that Novig is an addition to a Kalshi or Polymarket account rather than a replacement for one. Our best prediction market apps ranking sets out the full field.
One practical note for anyone running more than one account: because these venues price the same events independently, the same outcome regularly trades at different prices on each. Our live odds comparison tracks those gaps across venues, and the arbitrage guide covers how to trade them.
Is Novig Safe and Legit?
Novig is legitimate. It holds a CFTC designated contract market licence through Ludlow Exchange LLC, it has raised over $106 million from institutional investors including Pantera Capital and Y Combinator, and an MLB franchise put its stadium signage behind it after doing diligence. This is not a grey-market operation.
The standard caveats still apply, and they are not small.
You can lose money. Event contracts are a zero-sum instrument and the majority of retail participants lose over time. Zero commission reduces the cost of being wrong; it does not make you right.
Regulatory risk is live. The federal preemption question — whether sports event contracts fall under CFTC jurisdiction or state gaming law — is genuinely contested, and an adverse ruling would affect every venue operating on this basis, Novig included.
Liquidity risk is real on thinner markets. A limit order on a low-volume golf or WNBA market may not fill, and exiting a position before settlement can cost you more in spread than the commission you saved.
There is no yield on your idle cash, so capital parked at Novig is doing nothing between trades.
And profits are taxable. Novig settles in dollars through a regulated exchange, which means reporting obligations apply — our prediction market tax guide covers how the three possible treatments work.
Who Is Novig Best For?
Great fit:
- Sports traders who place enough volume that commission is a meaningful drag on returns, since zero fees compound faster than any other advantage in this category.
- Anyone who has been limited or banned by a traditional sportsbook for winning, which is the exact user the founders built the product for.
- Traders who want to post their own prices rather than accept a bookmaker's line, and who understand that a limit order may not fill.
- People who want dollar deposits and no crypto, but find Kalshi's per-contract fee irritating on high-frequency sports trading.
- NFL and MLB specialists, where Novig's books are deepest and the zero-commission advantage is most usable.
- Newcomers testing the category, given the $1 minimum deposit and the Novig Cash rewards programme that lets you build a balance without funding an account.
Not ideal for:
- Anyone who wants to trade elections or politics, who needs Polymarket or Kalshi instead.
- Traders interested in Fed decisions, inflation prints or crypto price levels, none of which Novig lists.
- Long-horizon holders, who are better served by Kalshi's roughly 4% APY on idle cash than by saving commission on a handful of trades.
- Residents of Arizona, Michigan or Nevada, who cannot access the platform at all.
- Algorithmic traders who need a documented public API, which Novig does not offer.
- Anyone wanting a single account for the entire prediction market category, which by design Novig is not.
Promotions and Incentives
Novig's current sign-up offer is a deposit match: put in $10 or more and receive $25 in trading credits. Credits are usable on the exchange and carry the standard eligibility conditions.
The Novig Cash rewards programme runs alongside it and lets you accumulate a tradeable balance without depositing.
Both are modest by the standards of the sportsbook promotions this category is often compared against, which is the honest trade-off of a zero-commission model — there is no margin funding a larger giveaway. Current offers across the category are tracked on our prediction market promo codes page and in our roundup of sign-up bonuses.
Final Verdict: 4.0 / 5
Novig is the cheapest place in this category to trade sports, and it is properly regulated while doing it. A CFTC designated contract market licence, zero retail commission, dollar deposits from $1, no withdrawal fees and $4 billion in annualised volume is a strong combination, and the Mets partnership is the kind of validation that does not get handed to operations with something to hide.
What keeps it at 4.0 rather than higher is scope and depth. Eight sports leagues and nothing else means most traders in this category will need a second account, and the books outside NFL and MLB are thin enough that a limit order can sit unfilled while the event drifts away from you. Paying nothing in commission is worth less than it sounds if you lose more than that in spread getting out of a position. The absence of any yield on idle cash costs long-horizon holders real money against Kalshi, and three states are shut out entirely.
Use Novig if you trade sports seriously and often — the fee saving over a season is the best deal available and nothing else comes close on cost. Do not make it your only account, because the moment you want to trade an election, a rate decision or anything that is not a game, you will need Kalshi or Polymarket as well. For a view of how the whole field ranks, see our best prediction market apps guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Novig?
Novig is a sports-only prediction market and betting exchange where users trade event contracts against each other rather than against a house. It operates through Ludlow Exchange LLC, a CFTC-designated contract market, and charges retail traders no commission.
Is Novig legal in the US?
Yes. The CFTC designated Novig's Ludlow Exchange entity as a designated contract market on June 16, 2026, which lets it list sports event contracts under federal derivatives rules nationally. It is live in 47 states plus Washington DC, with Arizona, Michigan and Nevada excluded. The broader legal picture is covered in our guide to prediction market legality.
What are Novig's fees?
There is no trading commission for retail traders. Your cost is the bid-ask spread you pay to the trader on the other side of your order. Withdrawals are free, and the minimum deposit is $1 by bank transfer. Novig pays no interest on idle cash, unlike Kalshi.
How does Novig compare to Polymarket and Kalshi?
Novig is cheaper than both and matches Kalshi's regulatory standing, but lists only sports across eight leagues while the other two cover politics, economics, crypto and culture as well. It is best used alongside one of them rather than instead — see our Polymarket vs Kalshi comparison for how those two divide up.
Can you bet on politics on Novig?
No. Novig lists no political, election, economic or crypto markets of any kind. The catalogue is NFL, MLB, MLS, WNBA, ATP and WTA tennis, PGA Tour and UFC.
Do I pay tax on Novig profits?
Yes. Novig settles in US dollars through a federally regulated exchange, so profits are reportable income. The IRS has published no guidance specific to prediction markets, and the three treatments people actually use are set out in our prediction market tax guide.
Who is the woman in the Novig ad?
Sydney Sweeney. She stars in Novig's first national brand campaign, which launched on September 9, 2026 and drew 37 million Instagram views in four days along with sustained criticism from female athletes. She is also an equity partner in Novig and, according to CEO Jacob Fortinsky, drove the campaign's visuals and messaging herself.
Is there a Novig promo code?
Novig's current offer credits $25 in trading credits on a deposit of $10 or more, subject to eligibility conditions. Live offers across the category are tracked on our promo codes page.
How do I deposit on Novig?
Through Trustly or Aeropay, both of which link to a US bank account. The minimum is $1 by online bank transfer, there are no withdrawal fees, and no crypto wallet is required at any point.
