Sydney Sweeneys racy ads help sports betting platform quadruple valuation to $2B

Novig, a sports-focused prediction market, has reportedly quadrupled its valuation to $2 billion after it targeted young men with racy ads featuring actress Sydney Sweeney posing fully nude with strategically placed sports gear.The prediction market – a smaller competitor to platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, which rival traditional sportsbooks – raised new funding at a $2 billion valuation, up from a $500 million valuation earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.Novig had built a small audience from its podcast and clinched a partnership with the New York Mets, but the platform took off after the “Euphoria” actress signed on as an equity investor and posed in her birthday suit for the company’s ads, which went viral online.“Think you know sports? Prove it,” Sweeney says in the commercial.“No betting on wars, or deaths, and no politics.

Just you, your takes and sports.”Sweeney then shows off all the sports that traders can bet on, leaving little to the imagination: posing fully nude with two footballs covering her chest, then sitting atop a basketball hoop and then with a soccer ball held up by her feet.At one point, she lies on a felt billiards table, quipping, “You can’t trade this.I just look good here.”The ads – which showed Sweeney covered just enough to be legally distributed on airwaves – fueled online backlash from critics who objected to the sexualization of women in sports and accused the commercial of reducing female athletes to their appearance.Sweeney lost over 200,000 Instagram followers after the commercial was released, according to Variety, though she still boasts nearly 26 million followers total.British sprinter Amy Hunt, Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus – a four-time Olympic gold medalist – and American gymnast Gracie Kramer each hit back at Sweeney’s eyebrow-raising ad, filming themselves excelling in their sport to show “what women’s sport looks like!”Former Fox News host-turne...