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Novig UMG

Trading Selection ⭐3.5/5

App / UX ⭐3.8/5

Bonus / Promos ⭐3.9/5

Customer Support ⭐3.6/5

Novig Promo Code: 1,000 Novig Coins plus 5 Novig Cash on sign up

Must be 18 years or older and have a legal, U.S. residential address within the applicable state, D.C., or U.S. territories. Not available in AZ, IL, MA, MD, MI, MT, NJ, NV and OH.

Novig UMG

Novig was founded by Harvard graduates Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah and launched as a state licensed sports exchange in Colorado in 2024 before pivoting to a sweepstakes model later that year. The platform is built around one core argument that traditional sportsbooks are structurally broken because they ban winning players. Novig's answer is a commission free, peer to peer exchange where users trade directly against each other, the house takes nothing, and the odds are set by the market rather than by a bookmaker protecting its margins.

1,000 Novig Coins plus 5 Novig Cash on sign up

Must be 18 years or older and have a legal, U.S. residential address within the applicable state, D.C., or U.S. territories. Not available in AZ, IL, MA, MD, MI, MT, NJ, NV and OH.

The platform reported a 10x increase in trading volume during 2025 and an annualised run rate of $4 billion. In February 2026, Novig raised $75 million in a Series B round led by Pantera Capital, valuing the company at approximately $500 million. The same month, Novig filed an application with the CFTC to operate as a Designated Contract Market, a move that would take it from 35 states under the sweepstakes framework to all 50 states under federal regulation. That transition is expected to go live in summer 2026. For now, Novig operates as a sweepstakes platform with a dual currency system, and the full prediction market product under CFTC oversight is still pending approval.

How Novig Actually Works

Novig UMG

Novig is a peer to peer exchange, which means you are never trading against the house. Every position you take is matched against another user on the other side. The platform operates an order book where users can either accept existing offers from other traders or create their own by setting the odds they want and waiting for someone to take the other side.
Currently Novig operates under a sweepstakes model using two virtual currencies. Novig Coins are the free play currency, handed out to all users and used to test strategies or trade without spending real money.

Novig Cash is the redeemable currency that can be exchanged for real prizes once you meet the platform's conditions. All sports trading on Novig happens through these two currencies rather than direct dollar deposits, which is what allows the platform to operate across 35 states without a traditional gambling licence.

Getting started requires downloading the Novig app on iOS or Android, creating an account with an email address or via Google or Apple login, and completing identity verification. Users must be 21 or older to participate. Once verified, new users receive 1,000 Novig Coins and 5 Novig Cash as a welcome bonus. Novig also guarantees that your Coins balance never drops below 100, meaning you always have something to trade with for free.

You browse available markets through the app, select a sport or event, and choose your outcome. On the order slip you can toggle between Take mode, where you accept the current best available price from another user, and Make mode, where you set your own odds and post them to the market for someone else to fill. Once a position is matched it sits in escrow until the event resolves. Unlike Kalshi or Polymarket, you cannot sell or exit a matched position early. The bet is locked in once filled and settles automatically when the game ends.

Platform Snapshot

Best For: Sports traders wanting commission free peer to peer exchange

🎁 Welcome Offer: 1,000 Novig Coins plus 5 Novig Cash on sign up; spend $5 get $50 Novig Cash promo

📍 Availability: 35 U.S. states (sweepstakes model); all 50 states pending CFTC approval

📚 Market Categories: Sports only (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, WNBA, NCAAF, NCAAB, MMA, soccer, golf)

💰 Payment Methods: Virtual currency model (Novig Coins and Novig Cash); no direct fiat deposits currently.

Key Facts

Novig was founded in 2024 by Jacob Fortinsky, who serves as Co Founder and CEO, and Kelechi Ukah, who serves as Co Founder and CTO. Both are recent Harvard graduates. The company is headquartered in New York and operates under the entity name Ludlow Exchange LLC for its pending CFTC application. 

Novig has raised a total of more than $105 million, including a $75 million Series B in February 2026 led by Pantera Capital with participation from Multicoin Capital, Makers Fund, Edge Equity, Forerunner, Perceptive Ventures, and NFX. The platform reported an annualised trading volume of $4 billion following a 10x volume growth year in 2025. It is currently available in 35 U.S. states under a sweepstakes model and is pending CFTC approval for a full federal launch across all 50 states.

Novig UMG

Platform Profile

Founded  2024
Founders Jacob Fortinsky (CEO) and Kelechi Ukah (CTO), Harvard graduates
Headquarters New York, USA
Supported States 35 states currently; all 50 pending CFTC approval
Asset Types Sports event contracts (peer to peer, order book exchange)
Fees Zero commission; no trading fees
Currency Model Novig Coins (free play) and Novig Cash (redeemable for prizes)
Regulation Status Sweepstakes model (current); CFTC DCM application pending (filed January 2026)
Valuation Approximately $500 million (February 2026)
Total Funding $105 million+
Backers Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, Y Combinator, Lux Capital, Joe Montana

What You Can Trade and What Makes It Different
Sports Coverage

Novig UMG

NFL: Game lines, spreads, totals, and player props across the full season, playoffs, and championship.

NBA: Regular season and playoff markets covering moneylines, spreads, totals, and a wide selection of player props.

MLB: Game lines and props through the full season and postseason.

NHL: Puck lines, moneylines, totals, and playoff markets.

WNBA: One of the platform's most active categories for quantitative traders, with Novig's own team noting particularly strong edge opportunities in the league.

College Sports: NCAAF and NCAAB markets across major conferences and rivalries.

MMA and Boxing: Fight card markets including moneylines and method of victory.

Soccer: Major international leagues and competitions.

Golf: Tournament outright and round markets.

Trading Model

Peer to Peer Order Book: Every position is matched against another user, not the platform

Make or Take Flow: Accept existing prices (Take) or set your own odds and post them to the market (Make)

Zero Commission: No fees on any trade, ever

No Early Exit: Once a position is matched it is locked until the event resolves, no selling out of positions mid game

Sweepstakes Currency: All trading currently uses Novig Coins and Novig Cash rather than direct dollar deposits

What Makes Novig Different

The zero commission model is genuinely unusual in the prediction market space. Kalshi, Polymarket, OG, and Crypto.com all charge some form of fee per contract. Novig does not. Every dollar of edge you find goes to you, not to the platform. That makes it particularly attractive for quantitative traders and anyone who trades at volume where fee drag on competing platforms becomes a meaningful cost.

The Make mode feature is another standout. Being able to post your own odds to the market rather than always accepting what is currently available gives traders a level of price control that is rare outside of traditional financial markets. If you think the current market is mispriced and want to trade at different odds, you simply post your number and wait.

The 10 times profitability claim is backed by the platform's own data. In a traditional sportsbook environment where the house edge typically sits between 5% and 10% depending on the market, a peer to peer exchange with no commission structurally removes that headwind. Novig argues this is the core reason its users outperform industry norms so dramatically.

Where the Action Is

Most Active Sports

NFL markets dominate volume during football season, followed closely by NBA throughout the basketball calendar. The WNBA has developed a reputation as one of Novig's most active categories for sharp traders, with the platform citing it as an area where algorithmic edge tends to persist longer than in larger, more efficient leagues.

Most Popular Contract Types

Moneylines and spreads attract the most volume. Player props, particularly points, assists, and rebounds markets in basketball and passing yards and touchdowns in football, have become one of the fastest growing segments as more traders use statistical models to find pricing discrepancies.

Live Markets

In play markets update as games progress, giving traders the ability to react to scoring runs, momentum shifts, and in game developments in real time.

Most Active Categories

NFL, NBA, MLB, WNBA, NCAAF, NHL, MMA , Soccer, Golf

Understanding the Cost Structure

Trading Fees

Novig charges zero commission on any trade. There is no maker fee, no taker fee, and no spread baked in by the platform. The only cost of trading is whatever difference exists between where you enter and where the market is priced, which is driven entirely by other users rather than by the platform taking a cut.
For context, Kalshi charges up to $1.75 per 100 contracts for takers. OG charges $0.02 per contract to open. Novig charges nothing. For a high volume trader placing hundreds of trades per month, that difference is substantial.

How Novig Makes Money

The platform is transparent that its current revenue model is based on coin purchases rather than trading fees. Users who want to play with more Novig Cash than they have earned through free distributions can purchase additional Novig Cash directly. The sweepstakes model funds the platform through this voluntary purchasing rather than through extraction from trading activity.

Under the future CFTC regulated model, the revenue structure will likely evolve, but Novig has made clear that eliminating or reducing trading friction for users is a core design principle.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Under the current sweepstakes model, there are no traditional deposits or withdrawals in the way a brokerage platform would process them. Users purchase Novig Cash if they want to top up beyond free distributions, and redeemable winnings are paid out as prizes when withdrawal conditions are met. Withdrawals are processed without a fee from Novig's side.

Under the future DCM model, direct USD funding and withdrawal infrastructure will be required, and fee details for that version of the product are not yet published.

Wins and Gaps

Wins

  • Genuinely zero commission trading, the only major prediction market platform with no trading fees
  • Make or Take order flow lets users set their own odds rather than always accepting market price
  • 43% of users profitable vs 3% industry average on traditional sportsbooks
  • Strong sports coverage across all major U.S. leagues plus international
  • Clean, fast mobile app with strong user reviews on iOS
  • Free Novig Coins guaranteed when balance drops below 100, always something to trade with
  • Generous welcome offer and referral program
  • Available in 35 states without needing a traditional betting licence
  • CFTC application filed, full 50 state rollout expected summer 2026
  • $105 million raised from top tier investors including Pantera Capital and Y Combinator

Gaps

  • Matched positions cannot be sold or exited early, you are locked in until the event settles
  • No politics, economics, crypto, or culture markets, sports only
  • Sweepstakes model is a transitional mechanism, not a permanent regulated structure
  • Currently blocked in several states that have banned sweepstakes gaming
  • No desktop trading, mobile app only
  • CFTC approval still pending, timeline not guaranteed
  • Thinner liquidity than established players on major game lines
  • No 1099 tax reporting infrastructure yet under the sweepstakes model

The Day to Day Experience

App Design

Novig is a mobile first product and the app reflects that. Navigation uses a clean bottom tab layout covering markets, rewards, wallet, portfolio, and account settings. Filtering by sport and market type is quick and intuitive. Live odds update automatically and pages load fast. User reviews on iOS consistently praise the app's responsiveness and speed, with the experience described as significantly cleaner than most sports betting apps.

Placing a Trade

The order slip is straightforward. You pick a market, choose your outcome, enter your stake, and toggle between Take mode and Make mode. Take fills immediately at the best available price from another user. Make posts your desired odds to the market and notifies you when someone accepts. The mechanics will feel familiar to anyone who has used a financial exchange, though the sports framing makes it accessible even for users who have never traded on an order book before.

Locked Positions

The inability to exit a matched position early is the most significant UX difference between Novig and platforms like Kalshi or Polymarket. Once your trade is filled, it settles at the end of the event, full stop. If the game turns against you and you want to cut a loss, you cannot. That is a meaningful constraint for traders used to managing live positions dynamically, and worth understanding clearly before you commit to a trade.

Support

Customer support is available through live chat inside the app, email at [email protected], phone support at +1 (917) 310 4992, and an active Discord community. The help centre covers account setup, coin purchases, redemption rules, and platform mechanics. Support options here are larger than on most competing prediction market platforms, particularly the availability of phone support, which almost no competitor offers.

Volume, Liquidity and Growth

Novig reported an annualised trading volume of $4 billion following 10x growth in 2025, making it one of the fastest growing sports prediction platforms in the United States. That growth rate attracted the attention of Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, and other top tier crypto and fintech investors who led the $75 million Series B in February 2026.

Liquidity on major game lines in NFL and NBA is solid and improving. The WNBA has developed particularly active markets, partly because the league has attracted a disproportionate share of quantitative traders who find pricing inefficiencies more persistent in smaller, less covered sports.

Player props are one of the fastest growing segments by volume, as more statistically driven traders use models to find pricing gaps that a peer to peer market creates naturally when participants have different information sets.

Liquidity does thin out in less covered sports and in lower profile games. A minor league matchup or a mid season game between two lower table soccer clubs will have a narrower order book and wider effective spreads than a prime time NFL playoff game. That is typical for any exchange model at this stage of growth.

Where You Can Use It and What the Law Says

Current Status

Novig currently operates under a sweepstakes model in 35 U.S. states. The sweepstakes framework allows the platform to operate without a traditional gambling licence by using virtual currencies with no direct dollar deposit required. Users must be 21 or older to participate.

The CFTC Application

In January 2026, Novig filed an application with the CFTC to operate as a Designated Contract Market under the entity name Ludlow Exchange LLC. Co founders Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah are listed as directors on the application. The CFTC review process for DCM licences is historically lengthy, with comparable applications taking approximately two years. Novig's leadership has publicly stated a target of summer 2026 for the transition, though the actual approval timeline is determined by the CFTC.

State Restrictions

Several states have explicitly banned sweepstakes casino gaming, which has reduced Novig's available footprint from an earlier high of 42 states. States including Nevada and Massachusetts present ongoing challenges even under the federal DCM model due to sports contract specific restrictions. The federal versus state legal battle over sports prediction markets is expected to reach the Supreme Court within the next two to three years according to Novig's CEO.

Compliance

Users must be 21 or older and complete identity verification. Novig operates with standard security protocols including two factor authentication and SSL encryption.

Reputation, Funding and Where It Stands in the Industry

Growing Fast, Growing Loud

Novig is one of the most talked about newcomers in the prediction market space. The 10x volume growth in 2025, the $75 million Series B, and a CEO willing to publicly argue that traditional sportsbooks are exploitative have all generated significant media attention. Jacob Fortinsky's appearance at Consensus Miami 2026, where he said that sports betting should be regulated as a financial product rather than gambling, positioned Novig as one of the most outspoken voices in the industry's regulatory debate.

The Profitability Argument

The claim that Novig users are 10 times more likely to win than on traditional sportsbooks has been validated by independent trading firms. Adam Mastrelli, founder of 57 Maiden, a firm that builds AI driven trading strategies for prediction markets, publicly confirmed using Novig after being banned from two major sportsbooks for being too sharp. His firm identified Novig as one of the few venues where skilled quantitative strategies can operate without being restricted.

Investor Confidence

Backing from Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, Y Combinator, Lux Capital, and others including former NFL quarterback Joe Montana signals serious institutional confidence in the platform's direction. The investor base skews heavily toward crypto and fintech, reflecting Novig's positioning as a financial product rather than a gambling product.

No Major Controversies

As a platform less than two years old, Novig has not accumulated the controversy track record of older and larger competitors. The most significant challenge has been the reduction in available states as sweepstakes bans have passed in various jurisdictions, a regulatory headwind that the CFTC application is designed to solve permanently.

Community

Novig has an active Discord community and maintains a presence on X/Twitter and other social platforms. The platform's community skews toward sports bettors and quantitative traders, and the Discord in particular is used by sharp users to discuss strategy, market inefficiencies, and platform updates. 

How Novig Compares

Platform Key Difference
Kalshi CFTC regulated with cash deposits, bigger market categories beyond sports, charges trading fees
OG.com CFTC regulated sports platform with parlay builder and fiat deposits, also charges per contract fee
Polymarket Crypto native, global access, far broader market catalog including politics and geopolitics
PredictIt Politics only, very different audience and use case, no sports coverage at all
Traditional Sportsbooks Set odds internally, ban winning users, charge a built in house edge on every market

Novig's core advantage over every other prediction market is the zero commission model. The core limitation compared to CFTC regulated competitors is that the full regulated product is not yet live, positions cannot be exited early, and the market catalog is sports only.

The Final Word

Novig is the most interesting new entrant in the U.S. prediction market space right now. The zero commission model is not a marketing claim dressed up as a feature. It is a structural reality that makes a genuine difference to anyone who trades at volume, and the platform's profitability data backs it up. The Make or Take order flow, the strong mobile experience, and the backing of serious institutional capital all point to a platform that is building something meaningful.

The honest reality is that Novig is still mid transition. The sweepstakes model is a bridge to the regulated product, not the destination. Locked positions, the 35 state footprint, and the mobile only experience are constraints that the CFTC approval and full platform launch are designed to address. If and when that approval comes through, Novig's combination of zero fees, peer to peer mechanics, and sports first design will make it one of the most compelling offers in the regulated prediction market space.

For now, it is worth using and watching closely, especially if you are a sports trader who has ever felt the sting of getting restricted or banned on a traditional sportsbook for the crime of being good at it.

The right fit for: Sports traders who want the best possible odds without a house edge taking a cut, quantitative and sharp bettors who have been restricted or limited on traditional sportsbooks, users in available states who want a genuinely free trading experience, anyone willing to engage with the sweepstakes model while the regulated version is in progress.

Probably not for: Traders who need to exit positions before events settle, users in states where the platform is currently unavailable, anyone primarily interested in politics, economics, or crypto markets, desktop first traders, users who want a fully regulated fiat in fiat out product right now rather than the future version.

⭐ Overall Rating: 7.6 / 10

The most trader friendly sports prediction market in the U.S. right now, with a regulated future that could push that rating significantly higher.