The news: Novig has received CFTC designation as a Designated Contract Market on Tuesday, clearing the way for the sports prediction market to operate across all 50 states under a single federal regulatory framework. The company filed its DCM application in January and says the approval is the fastest of its kind in CFTC history; a nationwide rollout is targeted for this summer. ProphetX received its own DCM designation five days earlier, also obtaining Derivatives Clearing Organization registration.

Zoom in: The designations complete a regulatory pivot that’s been quite some time in the making for both companies. Novig launched as a licensed betting exchange in New Jersey and Colorado, moved to a sweepstakes model across 42 states, and raised $75M in February with the DCM application already in process. “Federal oversight allows us to scale within a framework built on trust, transparency, and fairness,” said Novig co-founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky, adding that the platform has surpassed $5B in cumulative trading volume in a social post. ProphetX, which began as a licensed peer-to-peer marketplace in the U.K. in 2018, is taking a vertically integrated approach—including a proprietary parlay mechanism it says mirrors institutional trading protocols.

Why it matters: Back-to-back CFTC designations in less than a week’s time signals that the commission is prepared to move on sports prediction markets, and that the regulatory lane is real. Kalshi and Polymarket have already proven there is mass appetite for exchange-based prediction markets—the real question is where Novig and ProphetX will rank alongside a growing list of first-movers and sports betting incumbents.