The New York Mets just became the first Major League Baseball team to officially partner with a prediction market platform. Novig, a peer-to-peer sports trading exchange backed by Pantera Capital, announced a multi-year exclusive deal on July 30 that will plaster its branding across Citi Field, team broadcasts, and digital channels.
What Novig brings to the table
Novig has raised over $105 million in total funding, including a $75 million Series B round led by Pantera Capital in February 2026 that valued the platform at $500 million.
Novig reports over $5 billion in cumulative trading volume, with an annualized run rate exceeding $8 billion. For a platform that launched in January 2024, that growth curve is steep.
Novig operates as a peer-to-peer exchange with no commission fees. Users trade directly against each other rather than betting against the house, where the platform makes money on spreads rather than taking a cut of every wager.
The company received designation as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-approved Designated Contract Market in June 2026, one of the fastest approvals on record, allowing Novig to operate nationwide as a federally regulated entity rather than navigating the patchwork of state-by-state gambling licenses.
Co-founder Jacob Fortinsky is a lifelong Mets fan. He and co-founder Kelechi Ukah built the platform around the thesis that prediction markets offer a fundamentally better model than traditional sportsbooks for both operators and users.
Why the Mets deal matters beyond baseball
Novig is a federally regulated entity with CFTC oversight. The Mets partnership comes with MLB-authorized status, meaning Novig gets access to official league data.
The deal positions Novig in direct competition with Polymarket, which has dominated crypto-native prediction markets particularly around political events; Kalshi, which has carved out its niche as a CFTC-regulated event contracts exchange; and Robinhood, which recently entered the space by adding prediction market features to its existing brokerage platform. None of those competitors have landed an exclusive partnership with a major professional sports franchise.
What this means for the prediction market landscape
Pantera Capital’s decision to lead Novig’s $75 million Series B suggests conviction that prediction markets represent a major intersection of blockchain economics and traditional finance, even when the platform itself doesn’t operate on-chain.
Polymarket remains the dominant force in crypto-native prediction markets but has faced regulatory scrutiny in the US. Kalshi has CFTC approval and has been expanding its contract offerings. Robinhood brings a massive existing user base but treats prediction markets as a feature rather than a core product.
The $500 million valuation on $5 billion in trading volume gives a rough benchmark for how the market is pricing these platforms. The speed of Novig’s CFTC approval suggests regulators are becoming more comfortable with the prediction market model, which could lower barriers for other entrants.