Investors following the fast-moving prediction market sector learned this week that the Novig Mets prediction market partnership is now official, placing a federally regulated sports event-contract platform inside one of baseball’s biggest clubs for the first time.
The New York Mets and Novig announced a multi-year agreement naming Novig the team’s Exclusive Official Prediction Market Partner. The deal, which begins this season, covers signage at Citi Field, broadcast integrations and digital activations.
What Novig Is and How Its Federal Status Works
Novig operates through a subsidiary called Ludlow Exchange, LLC. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Designated Contract Market registry, Ludlow Exchange was granted its DCM designation on 16 June 2026, with nine associated documents filed with the Commission.
A DCM designation (meaning a federally approved derivatives exchange) matters because it lets Novig offer sports-based event contracts under national derivatives rules rather than seeking a licence state by state. That is a meaningful operational difference from traditional sportsbooks, which must navigate a patchwork of state gaming laws.
There is also a structural difference in how Novig works. Traditional sportsbooks take the other side of a customer’s bet, setting a fixed line and holding the risk themselves. Novig instead matches users against each other, with prices determined by order flow, closer to how a financial exchange operates than how a bookmaker does.
‘The sportsbook era is ending,’ said Novig co-founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky.
Novig has recorded more than $5 billion in cumulative trading volume to date and is scheduled to launch nationwide in August.
The Novig Mets Prediction Market Within MLB’s Integrity Framework
The Mets deal builds on a separate designation: Novig has also been named an MLB Authorized Prediction Market. That status requires participation in MLB’s integrity programme, which includes market monitoring, reporting protocols and restrictions on certain contract types, such as single-pitch or umpire-decision markets.
Novig’s position in that framework sits at the operator level, below Polymarket’s role as MLB’s Official Prediction Market Exchange. MLB named Polymarket to that exchange role in March, alongside a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the CFTC on information-sharing, signed by Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr and CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig, according to the MLB official press release. Under that arrangement, Polymarket and its brokers receive exclusive access to MLB marks and logos, as well as official league data from Sportradar.
Polymarket itself, operating through its registered entity QCX LLC, received its own DCM designation on 9 July 2025, according to the CFTC registry.
The MOU arrangement came one year after MLB had written to the CFTC calling for strong integrity protections in the prediction market space, reflecting how seriously baseball’s governing body treats the monitoring of these markets.
Who Else Is Chasing Federal Designation
Novig is not alone in pursuing the federal route. Sporttrade exited state-licensed sportsbook operations across five states in May and filed separate applications with the CFTC for a Designated Contract Market and a Derivatives Clearing Organisation (DCO, meaning a body that guarantees the settlement of trades). Those applications, filed under the entity names Sporttrade DCM LLC and Sporttrade DCO LLC, both carry a pending status dated 27 January 2026, per the CFTC DCO filings page.
DraftKings has launched its own CFTC-regulated exchange, DKeX. FanDuel partnered with CME Group in November 2025 to launch a platform called FanDuel Predicts for trading event contracts, according to a Norton Rose Fulbright analysis of the sector.
Sport leagues beyond baseball are moving in the same direction. The NHL entered multi-year agreements with both Kalshi and Polymarket in October 2025, each incorporating game integrity provisions. Major League Soccer announced a Polymarket partnership in January 2026 focused on the League Cup and game integrity.
A CFTC no-action letter dated 13 May 2026 (Letter No. 26-14) lists Ludlow Exchange, LLC alongside KalshiEX LLC, QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US, ProphetX LLC and Railbird Exchange among entities that have received or sought regulatory relief, signalling the breadth of the federal permission set now taking shape, per the CFTC no-action letter.
Not everyone is comfortable with the direction of travel. Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, responded to the MLB-Polymarket-CFTC announcements by stating: ‘A multi-hundred million-dollar partnership or a memorandum of understanding with the CFTC doesn’t make an unlawful business model legitimate. State laws and voter-approved frameworks govern sports betting in the U.S. – not federal workarounds.’ That tension, between federal derivatives rules and state gaming statutes, is the central regulatory question the sector has not yet resolved, as USA Today reported.
For holders of stocks in traditional gaming operators, the race for CFTC designation marks a structural shift worth tracking. If the federal model holds, the state-by-state licensing model that underpins much of the sector’s current valuation could face sustained pressure when Novig’s nationwide launch arrives in August.
