Novig prices
Prediction markets vs sportsbooks for Seahawks games: where the price comes from
A sportsbook builds its margin into both sides; a prediction market matches traders and charges a fee, or none. What that means for $100 on the Seahawks.
Two very different kinds of venue put a price on every Seahawks game. They arrive at that price from opposite ends, and the difference shows up in what a winning position pays. For a fan in Washington the comparison has an extra twist: the state keeps sportsbooks inside tribal casinos, so most of the sportsbook prices on a national board are ones a Seattle fan cannot take from home.
How a sportsbook prices a game
A sportsbook is your counterparty. It sets the line, takes the other side of every ticket and protects itself by shading both prices. A game it rates as a true coin flip does not go up at +100 each way; it goes up at -110 each way. Turn those prices into probabilities and they add to about 104.8%. The excess is the book's margin, the vig or hold, and it is in place before kickoff.
You never see it as a charge. It lives inside the odds. DraftKings' moneyline on Sunday's game, Cardinals at Seahawks, was Seattle -470 and Arizona +360 as ESPN listed it at about 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday. As probabilities, those add to 104.2%: a hold of about 4.2% before anyone has picked a side.
How a prediction market prices a game
A prediction market is not a counterparty but a matching engine. A trader who thinks Seattle wins is paired with one who thinks it loses, and the price is wherever their orders meet, quoted in cents as a probability. A Seahawks contract at 82 cents pays $1 if Seattle wins. With no house position to protect, nobody has a reason to shade the line, and the two sides of an active market usually add to within a cent or two of $1.
The venues earn money in different ways:
- Novig charges no fee on pre-game straight trades on its app or website. Live (in-game) trades that take a resting order pay a taker fee that scales with price, 0.06 × price × (1 − price) per contract, the NFL included, and traders whose resting orders are filled pay nothing, per Novig's fee schedule as of November 2026.
- Kalshi charges a taker fee scaled by price, built on a 7% rate. It is largest on a coin flip and shrinks as one side becomes a heavy favorite.
- Polymarket US sets its own fees by market; check its schedule before trading.
One game, three returns
Suppose the Seahawks trade at 82 cents on an exchange, close to the 82.5% that DraftKings' -470 implies.
| Venue | Quote | Profit on a winning $100 |
|---|---|---|
| Prediction market, no fee (Novig pre-game) | 82¢ (about -456) | $21.95 |
| Sportsbook (DraftKings, Friday afternoon) | -470 | $21.28 |
| Prediction market, 7% fee rate (Kalshi) | 82¢ | $20.43 |
On a heavy favorite the dollar gaps are small, because the profit itself is small; on a closer game they widen. At 60 cents, for instance, a 7% fee rate takes the return from $66.67 to $62.13. The sportsbook gets its margin by moving the price rather than adding a charge. Only the no-fee trade pays the full value of the probability on the screen. The 82-cent prices here are an illustration, not a quote; the board runs the same calculation on live prices for every Seahawks game and sorts each side from best return to worst. How to read the Seahawks board walks through the formula.
Why Washington changes the comparison
Washington allows sports betting only at tribal casinos. Some of those casinos run sportsbook apps, but the apps work only on casino property, so the DraftKings, FanDuel and other sportsbook rows on a national board are prices a fan in Seattle can see but not take from home. They still serve as a useful yardstick for what the market thinks.
Prediction markets are the statewide option, and they are contested. The Washington State Gambling Commission says event contracts are not authorized under state law. A King County Superior Court judge ordered Kalshi in August to block Washington users from its sports contracts, and the Ninth Circuit ruled the same month, in a Nevada case, that a state may apply its gambling law to sports event contracts. Novig, a CFTC-designated exchange where you take a position at a price set by other traders, has been available in Washington since August and has sued in federal court to stop the state from enforcing its gambling law against it; the state has asked the judge to dismiss that suit. Washington sports betting in 2026 has the full picture, and the Washington page prices this week's game at the venues a fan in the state can open.
Novig is available in 47 states. It is not offered in Arizona, Michigan or Nevada, which matters next week: the Seahawks play the Raiders in Las Vegas on Nov. 15, and a fan who makes the trip cannot trade on Novig from Nevada. What new traders get on sign-up is set out on the Novig offer page.
What "no fee" does not promise
No fee is not a promise of a better price. On a prediction market the price comes from other traders and moves with them, and a thinly traded market can show a wider gap between the best buy and the best sell than a sportsbook's built-in margin. When that happens it shows on the board, because the hold column measures every venue's two sides the same way. An NFL game usually draws enough volume to keep the gap small, but the board does not assume it; it measures it at every refresh.
This site is for readers 21 and older. If gambling stops being fun, call 1-800-GAMBLER.