Our Founding

The Sports Traders Union began in a group chat among people who trade sports markets. Traders had plenty of places to compare prices, discuss strategies, and share bad experiences, but no organized way to turn those experiences into common standards.

Around the same time, Novig encountered the same problem while developing a product for the federally regulated event-contract market. Its team looked for practical guidance on how platforms should protect users and found little to work from. Conversations with traders and researchers who had been wrestling with the same questions eventually produced the first version of the Responsible Trading Code.

As the document evolved, it became clear that it shouldn't belong to any one company.

That led to the creation of the Sports Traders Union, which organizes traders, maintains the Code, revises it over time, and applies the same standards to every platform.

Novig helped bring the original group together and provided the Union's initial funding, but it does not control the Union or receive special treatment under the Code. It is evaluated under the same standards as every other platform.

The first version of the Code reflects the judgment of the people who wrote it. We hope each revision reflects a little less of us and a little more of the people using these markets. Traders should help rewrite it, criticize it, point out what's missing, and tell us where we've gotten it wrong. We'll explain why we change the Code, publish how decisions are made, disclose our funding and relevant relationships, and leave a public record of where we disagree.

The rules governing these markets are still being written, and traders should have a hand in writing them. If you agree, we'd like you to join us.