This week: Novig, ProphetX enter prediction market fray with CFTC licenses

Also: Catching up with ParlayX after its SBC First Pitch win, and WagerWire CEO on the company’s push into prediction markets.

June 18, 2026

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Novig, ProphetX enter prediction market fray with CFTC licenses

The news: Novig has received CFTC designation as a Designated Contract Market on Tuesday, clearing the way for the sports prediction market to operate across all 50 states under a single federal regulatory framework. The company filed its DCM application in January and says the approval is the fastest of its kind in CFTC history; a nationwide rollout is targeted for this summer. ProphetX received its own DCM designation five days earlier, also obtaining Derivatives Clearing Organization registration.

Zoom in: The designations complete a regulatory pivot that's been years in the making for both companies. Novig launched as a licensed betting exchange in New Jersey and Colorado, moved to a sweepstakes model across 42 states, and raised $75M in February with the DCM application already in process. "Federal oversight allows us to scale within a framework built on trust, transparency, and fairness," said Novig co-founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky, adding that the platform has surpassed $5B in cumulative trading volume in a social post. ProphetX, which began as a licensed peer-to-peer marketplace in the U.K. in 2018, is taking a vertically integrated approach—including a proprietary parlay mechanism it says mirrors institutional trading protocols.

Why it matters: Back-to-back CFTC designations in less than a week’s time signals that the commission is prepared to move on sports prediction markets, and that the regulatory lane is real. Kalshi and Polymarket have already proven there is mass appetite for exchange-based prediction markets—the real question is where Novig and ProphetX will rank alongside a growing list of first-movers and sports betting incumbents.

ParlayX wins First Pitch at SBC Summit Americas 2026

The news: ParlayX, the institutional infrastructure for prediction markets, won First Pitch at SBC Summit Americas in Fort Lauderdale this past week, taking home a prize package valued at over $100,000. The company gives institutions a single integration point to access venues like Kalshi or Polymarket—bundling OTC counterparty trading, compliance, and tax reporting into one layer rather than requiring each client to build blockchain infrastructure from scratch. Founder Andrew Gonzalez, who had never pitched before the competition, let alone in front of a live audience, incorporated the company in November and went full-time in January.

Zoom in: The pitch went through major surgery in the days before the competition. Gonzalez and co-founder Antonio Cosio stripped technical and jargon-heavy language in favor of cleaner analogies, likening themselves to a Bloomberg or Fireblocks, but for prediction markets. The pair were still cutting slides two hours before taking the stage, the co-founder told us after stepping off the winner’s podium.

Why it matters: Gonzalez puts annualized prediction market trading volume at roughly $300B—a number institutions are eyeing but largely can't access today. ParlayX's win lands at a moment of genuine traction: the company is expecting to launch with four institutional partners the week after the competition. They join a small, but growing, list of startups who’ve claimed the First Pitch crown, including soccer analytics company AIstats in Lisbon 2025, Wager Games at the Americas 2025 edition, and others.

We caught up with Gonzalez at SBC, fresh after his first-place finish—listen to our conversation in full on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

WagerWire CEO will “control own destiny” with prediction market platform 

The news: We sat down with WagerWire Co-Founder and CEO Travis Geiger at SBC Summit in Fort Lauderdale last week, the morning the company announced its Gibraltar approval in principle for Wire Markets—its standalone prediction market platform targeting a 2026 NFL season launch.

Zoom in: Geiger connected the move to years of frustration trying to integrate WagerWire's secondary marketplace directly with U.S. operators. "One of the things that's tough about being a B2B company is you do not control your own destiny," he said, "and now we do." He also framed the regulatory evolution as a long time coming: "The reason we hadn't done it before is because the regulatory framework, like Gibraltar, didn't exist. And as you can see, even the regulatory framework in the US is a bit fraught,” he said, adding that “the table's still being set.”

Why it matters: Geiger was candid that Polymarket proved what WagerWire had been building toward, saying "it took a group of kids from MIT with Wall Street money to show everybody." He's now positioning Wire Markets as the regulated, compliant answer built from inside the industry. The company says it plans to open markets across LATAM, Asia Pacific, Africa, and parts of Europe, using Gibraltar's portable license as the foundation. 

We dug further into Geiger’s vision for Wire Markets and how it became the company’s next major opportunity—hear more of the conversation here.

News, money, and alpha 🗞️

Great gigs 💼

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