As it continues to rapidly ramp up its sports-focused prediction markets approach, ProphetX has partnered with skill-based gaming platform Players’ Lounge to launch event contracts within the latter’s ecosystem.
Players’ Lounge allows its millions of users to compete for real money on popular games like Call of Duty, Fortnite, NBA 2K, Madden NFL, and more. Now, it has integrated ProphetX’s prediction market exchange, enabling eligible users “in applicable U.S. jurisdictions” to trade event contracts on real-world sports outcomes directly within its existing platform.
The press release specifically named NFL game results, NBA player props, tournament brackets, and championship futures as the kind of markets that are now available on Players’ Lounge.
“Prediction markets on ProphetX are a perfect fit for what Players’ Lounge is all about: putting your knowledge to work in a fair, skill-driven environment,” said Players’ Lounge CEO Austin Woolridge. “We’re excited to give our community a regulated, exchange-based way to trade on the games they care about most.”
What is ProphetX’s business model?
ProphetX rebranded as a sports-focused prediction market platform last November, just over a year after previously repositioning itself as a sweepstakes platform. Last month, it was approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to work as a DCM and a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO).
Its CEO Dean Sisun told Earnings+More recently that the company intends to become a leading B2B supplier of sports-based event contracts to brokerages. It will focus on providing contracts to numerous existing exchanges and new CFTC registrants. Players’ Lounge is not registered with the CFTC as a DCM, nor with the National Futures Association (NFA) as a futures commission merchant (FCM), an introducing broker (IB) or another intermediary company.
“Think of the Kalshi-Robinhood model or the previous Crypto.com-Underdog model,” he said in comments published a week before the Players’ Lounge announcement. “Those are the models we want to pursue and where we think the space is going. We have built a product for that and have partners due to go live in the next couple of months.”
Players’ Lounge is not registered with the CFTC as a DCM, nor is it registered with the National Futures Association (NFA) as a futures commission merchant (FCM), an introducing broker (IB) or another intermediary company.
ProphetX styles itself as “America’s first sports-native prediction market”, and Sisun told E+M that the company is focused on establishing a competitive advantage in sports event contracts, specifically.
“We cannot currently do crypto, political markets and economic indicators better than Kalshi,” he said. “We can do sports better, so we will lead with sports.”
Not sports betting ‘in new clothes’, says ProphetX co-founder
The CEO added that ProphetX’s model is a significantly different competitive landscape from sportsbooks, even if the sports event contract product is largely comparable to state-regulated sports betting on the users’ end.
In comments about the Players’ Lounge partnership, Sisun’s Co-Founder and the company’s Chief Commercial Officer Jake Benzaquen stated that the products ProphetX offers are not “sports betting dressed up in new clothes”.
“Players’ Lounge has built something genuinely rare: a platform where a new generation of sports fans already shows up, competes, and has real money on the line,” said Benzaquen. “That community deserves access to the most competitive, transparent markets on the planet — and that’s exactly what ProphetX provides.
“This isn’t sports betting dressed up in new clothes. It’s a federal exchange where the crowd sets the price and every participant is on a level playing field.”
