Sports Betting Should Be Regulated as a Financial Product, Not Gambling — Prediction Market CEO

At Consensus Miami 2026, Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky made the case that sports event contracts are binary financial instruments that have been misclassified as gambling products for too long. He pointed to the industry's defining dysfunction: sportsbooks routinely ban their most accurate bettors. "Sports betting is really the only industry in the country that regularly limits and bans their power users," he said, framing the $2 trillion global market as one still held hostage by legacy casino operators.

Novig is backing that thesis with regulatory action. The company will transition this summer from a sweepstakes model operating in 35 states to a federal Designated Contract Market framework, giving it access to all 50 states. A prior attempt to win state-level approval in Colorado was instructive: regulators told Fortinsky they cared about tax revenue, not consumer protection or market…