Novig has given actress Sydney Sweeney an equity stake in the company and built its first national advertising campaign around her, releasing the spot on 10 September as the NFL season opened.
The campaign is called “Just Sports”. It shows Sweeney posing with a football, a basketball, hockey gear and a pool cue, using the equipment as cover, and closes on the claim that Novig lists sports markets and nothing else. “You can’t trade this. I just look good here,” she says over a pool table.
Sweeney called the concept “a very simple and playful idea” meant to “really bring the concept of ‘just sports’ to life”.
An equity deal, not an endorsement fee
Jacob Fortinsky, founder and chief executive of Novig, said Sweeney approached the company about an equity partnership. He declined to disclose the size of her stake or whether the deal included cash.
“Sydney is great at captivating audiences and being the center of attention. In some sense, it forces us into the national discourse,” Fortinsky said.
“We’re very excited to have her on the cap table,” he added.
The structure matters for a company at Novig’s stage. An equity partnership ties the talent’s payout to the company’s valuation rather than a fixed campaign fee, which keeps cash on the balance sheet during a period when US prediction market operators are competing for users through paid acquisition.
A sports-only exchange
Novig operates a peer-to-peer sports exchange. Users trade contracts against each other rather than against a house margin, and the company takes no vigorish, which is where the name comes from. It went live on a nationwide basis in August, roughly a month before the campaign ran.
The “just sports” line is aimed at the two largest players in the category. Kalshi and Polymarket list contracts on elections, economic data and culture alongside sports, and both have drawn political attention for it. Novig lists sports only. Fortinsky has named Kalshi, Polymarket, DraftKings and Betr as the companies Novig competes with.
Novig also sets its minimum age at 21, against 18 at Kalshi and Polymarket. That is the same threshold applied to state-licensed sportsbooks in most US jurisdictions, and it removes one of the arguments regulators have used against the category.
Funding and the fight for attention
Novig raised a $75 million Series B announced in February 2026, taking the total raised past $100 million since the company was formed in 2021. The round was pitched on building a trader-first sports prediction market rather than a traditional sportsbook.
Fortinsky has been explicit that the company is buying recognition rather than volume at any price.
“Not interested in necessarily winning every bidding war,” he said, adding that he is “very optimistic that a year from now we will very much be one of the first companies people think of when they hear about prediction markets.”
Celebrity association is a familiar route into that recognition. Licensed operators have spent years buying it through sports rights instead, as with BetMGM’s renewed Newcastle United deal, which puts the brand in front of an audience already watching the sport. A national campaign built on an actress reaches people who are not.
The advertising question
Prediction markets have expanded across all 50 states on the argument that their contracts are federally regulated event contracts under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not state-licensed sports betting. That position is being contested by several state gambling regulators, and the disputes are unresolved.
One consequence is that the advertising codes binding licensed US sportsbooks, covering affordability messaging, responsible gambling references and restrictions on targeting younger audiences, do not apply to prediction market operators in the same way. A campaign built on sex appeal and aimed squarely at the 18 to 34 male demographic tests that gap in public.
Novig’s bet is that the attention arrives before the scrutiny does. With the NFL season now running through to February and state regulators already litigating the licensing question, the campaign gives them a second front to look at.
Source: Novig
