Sporttrade wins CFTC approval for sports event contracts platform

4 November 2026
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Sporttrade, a premier sports market technology platform, announced that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has officially granted the company registration as both a Designated Contract Market and a Derivatives Clearing Organization.
Unlike many recent registrations, Sporttrade's designation as a DCM and DCO allows it to support intermediated activity through Futures Commission Merchants (FCM), as well as supporting direct access participants, Introducing Brokers (IBs), and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) on its exchange, and to clear for other DCMs via its DCO.
Under CFTC oversight, Sporttrade aims to deliver superior market structure, tight spreads, and real-time execution across sports event contracts, with a focus on improving quality of execution for brokers and their customers. In preparation for launch, Sporttrade is actively onboarding brokers with national distribution such as Fliff, that will route order flow from their customers to the exchange pending regulatory approval.
As a CFTC-regulated DCM and DCO, Sporttrade is built from the ground up to support flow-providing intermediaries, sophisticated traders, and market makers. By bringing the technology and market structure of traditional financial exchanges to sports markets, Sporttrade provides its partners and participants with an execution environment engineered for scale and reliability.
"Receiving our DCM and DCO registrations from the CFTC is a true full circle moment for our company," said Alexander Kane, Chief Executive Officer at Sporttrade. "We founded Sporttrade on the principle that sports markets deserve the same high-performance structure, tight pricing, and regulatory integrity as traditional financial markets. By operating as both the exchange and the clearing venue, we are empowering broker partners with superior market quality while giving sophisticated traders the liquidity, transparency, and service they demand. In addition to our exchange business, we're pleased to have begun clearing discussions with several exchanges who have understood Sporttrade to be a market leader on exchange and clearing technology for the past five years."
Key Highlights of Sporttrade's Exchange & Clearing Infrastructure:
Broker-First Market Architecture: Engineered to seamlessly support flow providers with dedicated institutional support, dedicated order entry, market data, drop copy ports, and robust back-office tools.
Direct Clearing Capability: As a registered DCO, Sporttrade directly clears and settles transactions for self-clearing members and intermediaries, and leverages a more efficient withholding on member balances while maintaining full collateralization.
Superior Quality of Execution: Powered by proprietary market structure, Sporttrade is poised to reduce broker costs by decreasing spreads on the type of products broker customers desire.
Sporttrade DCM plans to roll out its exchange and clearing capabilities in phases, starting with select flow and liquidity providers.
Sporttrade is working with a pipeline of additional brokers and institutional partners to quickly expand its market presence in the coming months.