Overtime Markets vs Novig

Overtime Markets was launched in 2022 by the Thales Core Council—a decentralized governance council elected by stakers of the Thales (later rebranded to OVER) protocol. Engineered as an on-chain, peer-to-contract sports betting protocol on Ethereum Layer-2 networks (Optimism and Arbitrum), Overtime eliminated traditional sportsbook frictions such as forced identity verification (KYC), account limits on winning traders, and centralized custody. Instead of matching order books or taking counterparty risk, Overtime utilizes an Automated Market Maker (AMM) architecture derived from binary option mechanics.

To establish fair market pricing without a centralized oddsmaker, Overtime routes real-time data feeds via Chainlink oracles that scrape benchmark odds from global market venues like Pinnacle. The protocol dynamically adjusts its odds using a dynamic "skew mechanism": when heavy capital flows onto one side of an outcome, the AMM automatically reduces payout odds for the backed side while boosting yields on the unbacked side. This incentivizes arbitrage traders to rebalance the protocol’s net exposure, protecting the vault liquidity pool from directional market risk.

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In 2021, Harvard undergraduate Jacob Fortinsky was earning serious profits as a quantitative sharp bettor — until traditional sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel systematically limited his account stakes to pennies. Frustrated by an industry that bans winning customers while charging 8% to 10% hidden house margins (vigorish), Fortinsky teamed up with his computer science classmate Kelechi Ukah to eliminate the house entirely. Their premise was simple: build an institutional-grade financial exchange where sports fans trade spreads and totals directly against each other. After joining Y Combinator's Summer 2022 batch, Novig raised a $6.4 million seed round in August 2023 backed by YC founder Paul Graham, NFL legend Joe Montana, and Lux Capital, laying the engineering groundwork for a zero-commission order book.

Novig's path to scale was defined by rapid regulatory pivots. The company initially launched in early 2024 as a state-licensed sportsbook in Colorado, but quickly recognized that state-by-state sports betting licenses were too slow and capital-intensive. In September 2024, Novig radically restructured into a dual-currency sweepstakes platform utilizing "Novig Coins" and "Novig Cash," allowing it to instantly expand across 40 U.S. states, including non-sportsbook giant markets like Texas and California. Trading volume exploded 50-fold, attracting an $18 million Series A led by Forerunner Ventures in August 2025. However, as state attorneys general began launching aggressive legal crackdowns on sweepstakes gambling in late 2025, shutting down operations in New York and New Jersey, Novig faced an existential crisis that threatened to erase its state-level access.

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