Novig prices
Prediction markets vs sportsbooks for Warriors games: where the price comes from
A sportsbook builds its margin into both sides; a prediction market matches fans and charges a fee, or none. What that means on a Warriors game.
On any Warriors night there are two very different kinds of venue putting a price on the same game. They get to that price from opposite directions, and the difference shows up in what a winning position pays. For fans in California, where no sportsbook is legal, it also decides which of those prices they can take at all.
The sportsbook model
A sportsbook is the counterparty. It writes the line, takes the other side of every ticket and protects itself by shading both prices. A game it considers a genuine coin flip does not go up at +100 on each side; it goes up at -110 on each side. Convert those two prices to probabilities and they add to about 104.8%. The extra is the book's margin, usually called the vig or the hold, and it is in place before the opening tip.
Nobody hands you an invoice for it. It lives inside the odds. DraftKings' moneyline on tonight's Warriors game at Minnesota, as ESPN listed it at noon Eastern on Wednesday, was Timberwolves -170 and Warriors +142. Turned into probabilities, those two prices add up to 104.3%: a hold of about 4.3% before anyone has taken a side.
The prediction-market model
A prediction market is not a counterparty. It is a matching engine. A fan who thinks the Warriors win is paired with a fan who thinks they lose, and the price is wherever their orders meet, quoted in cents as a probability. A Warriors contract at 42 cents pays $1 if the Warriors win. With no house position to protect, nobody has a reason to shade the line.
The venues make their money in different ways:
- Novig takes no vig. A trade taken before tip-off on the app or website carries no fee. Once the game is live, a trade that takes a resting price pays a taker fee (the rate is on Novig's fee schedule), and placing your own order for someone else to fill costs nothing.
- 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 also charges a fee on many sports markets, with a rate that varies by market.
The same game, three returns
Suppose a home favorite trades at 60 cents, the equivalent of -150.
| Venue | Quote | Profit on a winning $100 |
|---|---|---|
| Novig, before tip-off | 60¢ (-150) | $66.67 |
| Sportsbook | -160 | $62.50 |
| Kalshi, 7% fee rate | 60¢ | $62.13 |
At the same 60-cent price, Kalshi's fee costs about $4.54 of profit per $100 against a no-fee fill. The sportsbook gets to a similar place by moving the price instead of adding a charge. The board runs this calculation for every Warriors game and sorts each side from best return to worst, and how to read the board walks through the formula.
Why the live fee matters more in the NBA
Basketball is a game of runs, and a lot of NBA trading happens after tip-off. The Warriors led Memphis by 12 with 3:47 left last Friday and lost 111-108 to a 17-0 Grizzlies run; a fan who wanted to act on that swing was trading live, where Novig's taker fee applies. Before the game, the comparison above is the one the board shows. During it, check the venue's own screen.
Why this matters in California
California has no legal sportsbook of any kind: voters turned down both sports betting measures in 2022, and the state's gaming tribes are aiming for a new one in 2028. For a fan in San Francisco or Oakland, the DraftKings and FanDuel rows on the board are reference prices, not prices they can take.
Prediction markets are overseen federally by the CFTC rather than licensed state by state, which is why they reach places the books do not. Novig is a CFTC-designated exchange available in 47 states, California among them. The three where it is not available are Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, which matters if you follow the team on the road to Phoenix. Kalshi and Polymarket US also operate in California, though a September federal appeals ruling led Kalshi to switch off its sports contracts on three tribal reservations. The California page sets out what is open and is rechecked monthly, and our 2026 guide covers the law in more detail. What Novig offers new traders is on our Novig page.
What "no vig" does not promise
No vig is not the same as a guaranteed better price. On a prediction market the price comes from other traders and moves with them, and a thinly traded game 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 up on the board, because the hold column measures every venue's two sides the same way. The board does not take liquidity on faith; it measures it each time it refreshes.
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