- Novig went live Aug. 4 in every state except Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, Texas included.
- Ludlow Exchange LLC, which Novig owns, won CFTC designation as a contract market on June 16.
- No Texas agency licenses Ludlow Exchange, reviews the contracts it lists or can switch it off.
- Texas Penal Code Section 47.02 makes a bet a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $500.
AUSTIN, Texas – Novig relaunched nationwide Aug. 4 and began accepting trades from Texans on Ludlow Exchange LLC, a futures market the company owns and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission designated on June 16. The launch puts sports contracts in front of residents of a state where making a bet is a criminal offense.
Novig Owns The Exchange It Trades On
Novig did not list its contracts on someone else’s venue. The company applied for designated contract market status in January and cleared it five months later, and the commission’s public register of trading organizations carries Ludlow Exchange LLC with a designation date of June 16, 2026, and a status of designated.
Eligibility turns on where a trader is physically standing rather than where the account holder lives, and the platform holds a 21-and-over floor that Novig says no other prediction market matches. Kalshi sets its minimum at 18. Trading runs on an anonymous central limit order book, a non-intermediated model that bars any futures commission merchant from carrying customer accounts.
“For too long, sports fans have had limited ways to engage with the markets they know best,” co-founder and chief executive Jacob Fortinsky said in announcing the nationwide launch.
Novig, founded in 2021 by Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah, previously ran a licensed betting exchange in New Jersey and Colorado and then a dual-currency sweepstakes product before shutting it ahead of the relaunch. It now trades alongside Kalshi and Polymarket, the exchanges that opened Texas prediction markets to residents without a state license.
Six Exchanges Won Federal Designation In 2026
The commission’s register lists six designations this year. Xchange Alpha cleared on Jan. 30, ProphetX on June 11, Ludlow on June 16, Optex Markets on July 9, Water Street Labs on July 16 and Juice Exchange on July 24. Five of the six arrived in the 43 days from June 11 to July 24.
Each designation opens Texas by default. A designated contract market answers to the CFTC rather than a state gaming regulator, so no Texas agency licenses it, reviews the contracts it lists or holds the authority to switch it off. That is the same mechanism under which sports betting arrived in Texas without a vote in July, when the two largest US sportsbook brands began offering event contracts to Texans.
The Texas Study Reports To A Session That Starts Jan. 12
The state response is a study. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s March 27 charge to the Senate State Affairs Committee, headed “Closing Gambling Loopholes,” directs it to “study the sudden inundation of prediction market gambling and the exploitation of federal law to circumvent Texas gambling prohibitions by allowing users to place bets on the outcome of elections and other events,” and to “examine the relationship between federally regulated derivative markets and state-prohibited gambling.”
The committee, chaired by Sen. Bryan Hughes, reports to the 90th Legislature. Texas lawmakers hold a regular session only in odd-numbered years, so no regular session has convened since Patrick issued the charge, a stretch in which the CFTC designated five more exchanges.
Until the session opens, Section 47.02 stands as written. It makes it an offense to bet on the partial or final result of a game or contest, or on the performance of a participant, grades that a Class C misdemeanor and caps the punishment at a $500 fine with no jail term.
That provision is why sportsbooks remain off the list of legal Texas gambling sites. Novig trades in the state without a Texas license because the CFTC, not Austin, granted the one it holds. The 90th Legislature convenes Jan. 12, 2027.