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Sydney Sweeney ad helps put Novig at $2 billion valuation. Sydney Sweeney ad helps put Novig at $2 billion valuation vanja mitic october 1, 2026 latest casino and gambling news. Novig has reportedly raised new funding at a $2 billion valuation, quadrupling the sports-focused prediction market operator's value since its previous financing round earlier this year. The company was valued at $500 million in February after raising $75 million in a funding round led by Pantera Capital and other investors. The latest financing therefore represents a fourfold increase in less than eight months. Novig, founded by Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah in 2021, began as a peer-to-peer sports exchange before shifting toward a federally regulated prediction market model. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the company as a designated contract market in June, clearing the way for its sports-focused prediction platform to launch in August. The business now operates in 47 states, with Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada remaining outside its current footprint. The latest valuation still places Novig well below the largest prediction market operators. Kalshi is valued at around $40 billion, while Polymarket carries a valuation of roughly $21 billion. Sports-Only model drives market position. Novig has differentiated itself by limiting its markets to sports while several major competitors also offer contracts tied to financial, economic, political, and cultural events. The company has recorded substantial trading activity since entering the prediction market sector. Since the NFL season began on September 9, Novig has generated $1.14 billion in notional trading volume, according to Aldrin Research. It ranked sixth among 11 prediction market operators reporting trading volume during the first three weeks of NFL activity, ahead of Robinhood, Underdog, ProphetX, and several others. Company figures also show more than 250,000 traders have generated over $6.5 billion in total volume on the platform. Novig has also adopted restrictions that differ from some competitors. Before the NFL season, the company agreed to follow a league request barring markets considered "easily manipulable, inherently objectionable, officiating-related, and knowable in advance." The company also became the first U.S. prediction market operator to set its minimum user age at 21. Some competitors continue to permit customers from age 18. Fortinsky explained the company's approach to responsible trading: "Trust is the foundation of every market, and it's earned through clear rules and accountability," Fortinsky recently said, as The Wall Street Journal reports. "Responsible trading shouldn't rest solely with the customer - it should always begin with the exchange itself. By codifying responsible trading standards directly into our rulebook, we're holding ourselves to the same high standard we expect of our participants and establishing a new benchmark for how federally regulated prediction markets should operate." Sydney Sweeney campaign raises Novig's profile. Novig has also drawn broader attention through a promotional campaign featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, who joined the company as an equity investor. The campaign launched in early September and emphasized Novig's sports-only product range. In one commercial, Sweeney says: "Think you know sports? Prove it," Sweeney says in the commercial. "No betting on wars, or deaths, and no politics. Just you, your takes and sports." The ads attracted significant attention online and increased Novig's visibility during the early weeks of the NFL season. Sweeney did not take standard cash compensation for the campaign. Instead, she received an undisclosed equity stake in the company. Her exact ownership percentage has not been revealed. The funding reports arrived after Novig had also expanded its marketing presence through professional sports. The company announced a partnership with the New York Mets in August, becoming the first trading exchange to enter a marketing agreement with an MLB team. At the same time, the campaign involving Sweeney helped push Novig into wider public discussion beyond the prediction market sector. One of the advertisements also includes the line: "You can't trade this. I just look good here." Funding follows rapid expansion. Investor interest in Novig has increased since the company obtained its CFTC approval and entered the prediction market sector. Its February Series B financing included participation from existing investors such as Forerunner, NFX, and Perceptive Ventures, along with Edge Equity, Makers Fund, and Multicoin Capital. The reported $2 billion valuation reflects the company's rapid expansion since that round, although Novig remains considerably smaller than the two largest prediction market platforms by valuation. An initial public offering also appears to remain some distance away. Novig has not announced plans to go public and continues to focus on expanding its trading platform and user base.

Why sydney Sweeney is the big winner of the Novig ad backlash. Sep 15, 2026 at 12:11 PM EDT to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Sydney Sweeney's latest ad controversy promises to pay out big for the actress and her partnering business Novig, the prediction market, which hopes, with the starlet's help, to rival the giants Kalshi and Polymarket. The 29-year-old appears to be carving a niche for marketing stunts which draw the ire - and interest - of the American public. Some 13 months on from the American Eagle "great jeans" furor, her recent turn as a seminude, polysport athlete has once again blurred lines between marketing, exploitation and a calculated piece of culture war provocation. The ad features Sweeney, pretending to play a number of different sports in a mood-lit studio. Barely clothed, she strategically places sports equipment - and is strategically placed herself - to keep the campaign fit for broadcast. Read more on U.S. "Just sports," the "Euphoria" star says in the minute-long commercial, which was first shown last week. Beyond cementing her status as Madison Avenue's go-to queen of controversy, the buzz generated by the Novig campaign could prove lucrative for Sweeney, who has acquired an unspecified equity stake in the company. Newsweek has contacted Novig for comment and is awaiting a response. Novig rides backlash to success. Founded in 2021 and now valued at around $500 million - before Sweeney's involvement - Novig is a sports-focused prediction market which allows its users to bet against others on specific sports outcomes. Though sports betting itself remains banned in a number of states including California and Texas, Novig launched last month and can now operate legally nationwide as a sports prediction market federally regulated and approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The bulletin. Want the morning news straight to your inbox? "The campaign was about embracing a fun idea," Sweeney said, according to a press release from Novig. "The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports." But the public reaction to the ad has sidelined this supposed "focus," with much of the backlash led by real female athletes bemused by the campaign's casting and its "just sports" tagline. "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like: 21.4. Muscles. Hard work, blood, sweat, tears," the British sprinter Amy Hunt said, after competing in the 200 meter sprint at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship on Sunday. "I can't describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this," the retired Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, posted to Instagram. "How do we live in a world where monetizing a women's body and sexualizing women's sport is still a thing?" she added. But by "hypersexualizing" women's sports and cutting right to the heart of culture war conversations, some see this as a deliberate campaign of controversy generation by the company itself. "They're doing it almost like an instigating troll sort of thing," Stephen Warren, a professor of communications at Northeastern University, told Northeastern Global News. Warren also noted that the campaign appeared to have disrupted the traditional advertising framework, with the subsequent reaction and debate arguably doing more to fuel interest than the ad itself. Is Sweeney the big winner of Novig ad backlash? Variety reports that Sweeney has lost over 200,000 followers on Instagram since the advert first aired and "triggered a negative reaction among those objecting to its sexualization of women in sports." But the old Madison Avenue adage that "sex sells" holds true today. And in terms of generating raw attention, Sweeney's "just sports" commercial now appears a calculated piece of marketing by the up-and-coming betting website. Novig has climbed to number 11 on the App Store sports app rankings from the #50 spot back in August. And over the past week, the term "Novig" has generated around double the search interest as its rivals Kalshi and Polymarket - despite the latter releasing its own advert starring LeBron James over the Labor Day weekend. The spike in searches for Sweeney means interest in the actress herself - if Google is any indication - now dwarfs that of any prediction market. Since it first aired, "Sydney Sweeney" has now overtaken "Donald Trump" and "Iran war," with "Sydney Sweeney sports ad" becoming the most popular search term over the past seven days. A year ago, Sweeney faced significant criticism over her American Eagle campaign, some deeming this an endorsement of eugenicist ideals and others a harmless piece of wordplay. Social media airwaves were for days taken up by those championing each side of the argument, and the company weeks later attributed an "uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales" to the actress's campaign. And with her new "strategic partner and equity holder" role at Novig, Sweeney stands to gain if the prediction market can convert the current controversy into brand recognition and sustained user growth.