Novig has become the latest business to receive approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate as a designated contract market (DCM), allowing it to operate its own prediction market exchange.
Novig’s DCM, named Ludlow Exchange, gained approval Tuesday, CFTC filings show.
Novig currently operates a betting exchange through a sweepstakes model. In August, Novig co-founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky told InGame that he didn’t see operating as a CFTC-registered DCM and via the sweepstakes model as mutually exclusive.
In a press release announcing the approval, Fortinsky said operating as a registered prediction market would allow the business to offer a better product.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Novig says it will be able to operate across all 50 states with CFTC approval, and “implement robust safeguards more commonly associated with financial markets, including enhanced market surveillance, protections against manipulation and insider activity, and comprehensive compliance standards designed to protect participants.”
In addition, it said it would keep its 21+ age requirement. Most major prediction markets allow users ages 18 and up.
Approval was granted five months after Novig’s application first appeared in the CFTC portal. That turnaround is significantly faster than had been the norm a year earlier. The two DCMs approved in 2025, Railbird and QCEX (since acquired by DraftKings and Polymarket, respectively) both applied for DCM status in 2022.
Second approval within a week
The approval also comes just five days after ProphetX was approved, meaning that two businesses built as sports betting exchanges have now been approved by the CFTC within a week. ProphetX also applied in January, suggesting that faster approvals may be becoming commonplace.
ProphetX also self-certified its first contracts Monday, on baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis, combat sports, golf, basketball, and parlays.
Meanwhile, a new DCM application, 365Predictions, was registered with the CFTC on Thursday. 365Predictions is owned and operated by former Sportradar executive Laila Mintas. There are currently 17 DCM applications listed as “pending.”
Some of these companies may not be planning to operate a prediction market, but they may still be an acquisition target for a company that doesn’t want to go through the full DCM application process itself.
