{"id":3222,"date":"2026-06-26T17:20:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/?p=3222"},"modified":"2026-07-04T17:23:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T17:23:55","slug":"f-the-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership\/f-the-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018F*** the casinos\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Welcome to the jungle:<\/strong> In attempting to stifle federally regulated sports event trading, the US gaming industry is setting itself against a consumer that is far more willing to embrace innovative trading opportunities, according to Jacob Fortinsky, CEO at Novig.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Speaking to <em>Earnings+More<\/em>, Fortinsky said it was \u201chigh time for sports to be treated as a legitimate asset class that can be traded the same way crypto or options are traded.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAnd I think there\u2019s been this shift in consumer behavior over the last decade, where sports bettors are increasingly viewing these markets as a financial product,\u201d he added.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>We got fun and games: <\/strong>Hammering home the contested message that prediction markets are fairer than regular sportsbooks, Fortinsky noted that sports betting is the \u201cone industry that regularly bans power users.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWhen you unshackle the market, you allow a two-sided marketplace to thrive and you see this explosion of volume, and it\u2019s similar to the early days of Uber and Lyft.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYou\u2019re 10 times more likely to win on the whole on a platform like Novig compared to a traditional sportsbook. And so I think the only people who lose are the casinos, basically.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAnd fuck the casinos,\u201d he added for emphasis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Money is the anthem of success: <\/strong>Back in February, Novig announced a $75m Series B funding round, led by Pantera Capital with the participation of Multicoin, Makers Fund and others alongside, taking its total raised past $105m since launch in late 2024.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But Fortinsky said the money raised is a \u201clagging indicator\u201d of the company\u2019s success.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe real success is the traction of the platform,\u201d he added.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>You think that\u2019s big?<\/strong> Impressive as that is, it is still way behind the money raised to date by Kalshi, which is reportedly seeking a new raise that would value the business at $40bn (see below). \u201cRaising $75m, it is really still a small fraction of what we\u2019re going up against,\u201d Fortinsky said.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But, he added, Novig is used to \u201ccompeting with people with hundreds of millions or billions on their balance sheet.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve been on a journey:<\/strong> Novig started its journey as a betting exchange seeking out regulated market opportunities before pivoting to a sports sweepstakes model. But Fortinsky insisted the move into prediction markets was the \u201cvision from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cUltimately, the core vision of the company has not shifted,\u201d he said. \u201cTruthfully, I think this is exactly how I envisioned the market playing out.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>While the prediction markets have \u201caccelerated a little faster than I would have expected,\u201d he insisted Novig has been \u201cbuilding for this world since day one.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Nothing can stop us now:<\/strong> Pressed on whether any regulator or court could now rein the sector in, he didn\u2019t hesitate to push back. \u201cIt\u2019s here to stay,\u201d he said, characterizing the opposition as narrow and self-interested.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIt\u2019s a straightforward interpretation of the law and the federal government has a far more legitimate case than the states, which are just concerned about losing tax revenue,\u201d he added.<\/li>\n<li>A survey released this week from the Coalition for Prediction Markets found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semafor.com\/article\/06\/24\/2026\/polls-voters-favor-federal-oversight-of-prediction-markets\">bipartisan support<\/a> among the public for Federal oversight over state-by-state control.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>In the public interest:<\/strong> The conviction that consumer adoption has created facts on the ground no agency can undo is the same current running beneath Kalshi\u2019s reported flotation talks, and Fortinsky sees the listing question in generational terms rather than tactical ones.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThe generational companies, the category-defining companies should be public so that the public can get a piece of the next generation of retail finance and of sports trading,\u201d he said.<\/li>\n<li>But deeper private liquidity means \u201cthere isn\u2019t the same impetus or need to go public as there once was.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Meta verse:<\/strong> He is similarly unbothered by the prospect of a land grab from the technology platforms, including Meta\u2019s reported interest this week. \u201cIt\u2019s just inevitable that this is the next wave of retail trading,\u201d he said. \u201cIt starts with sports. They are the tip of the iceberg.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Welcome mat: <\/strong>Also this week, Novig announced it has hired Eliezer Mishory, an ex-DOGE staffer and former Kalshi official, as its new chief regulatory and legal affairs officer.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/earningsandmore.substack.com\/p\/f-the-casinos\">Like what you are reading? CLICK here to read the FULL article!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the jungle: In attempting to stifle federally regulated sports event trading, the US gaming industry is setting itself against a consumer that is far more willing to embrace innovative trading opportunities, according to Jacob Fortinsky, CEO at Novig. Speaking to Earnings+More, Fortinsky said it was \u201chigh time for sports to be treated as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bettingjobs-earningsandmore-partnership"],"acf":[],"post_author_name":"","post_authors_type":"","post_authors_from_team_members":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3225,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3222\/revisions\/3225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}