Fanatics Markets review: is it legit?

Is Fanatics Markets legit?

Yes. Fanatics Markets is a federally registered broker, not an offshore app. Its legal name is Morton St. Trading Investments, LLC. It registered with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant on March 18, 2026. It joined the National Futures Association the same day.

A broker is one layer of four, so here is the stack. The app comes from Morton St. Trading Technologies, a Fanatics affiliate. The broker, Fanatics Markets FCM, takes your orders and holds your money. The exchange is CDNA, the market once called Nadex. CDNA is registered with the CFTC as both an exchange and a clearinghouse. At the top sits Fanatics Holdings, Inc., founded and run by Michael Rubin.

It did not start this way. Fanatics Markets launched on December 3, 2025, through Paragon Global Markets, an introducing broker registered since 2014. Back then, you traded through your own account at CDNA. By September 2026, the Fanatics FCM had taken over as a clearing member of CDNA. It now clears its customers' trades itself.

That settles “legit.” It covers less than it sounds. Registration tells you who supervises the broker. It does not protect every dollar in the app, as the next section shows. And it does not settle state law.

Is Fanatics Markets safe? How your money is held

Start with the broker account. Cash in it counts as cleared-swaps customer collateral under Part 22 of the CFTC's rules. The FCM keeps it at CDNA or at US banks, pooled with other customers' money but apart from its own.

Now the fine print. Cash you are not trading does not have to stay there. The customer agreement lets the FCM sweep it to a Fanatics affiliate's wallet, including at each day's close. That same wallet serves Fanatics Sportsbook and Casino.

The agreement is blunt about that wallet. Its cash is not segregated under CFTC rules and gets no protection under Part 190, the commodity-broker bankruptcy rules. It is not FDIC-insured or SIPC-protected either. Fanatics even flags the conflict: its affiliates benefit when your cash sits there.

The broker account is not a bank or securities account either. FDIC and SIPC do not apply, and the agreement warns you may not recover everything in an insolvency. The agreement also says the FCM need not pay interest on your cash. At July 31, 2026, the FCM reported about $5 million in adjusted net capital, against a $1 million minimum.

Getting in takes more data than most apps ask for. You give your Social Security number, which Fanatics uses to confirm US citizenship. It also asks your income, net worth, occupation and trading experience. It may request a driver's license or passport.

Two-factor codes at login are optional, sent by email or text. Changes to your email, phone or password always need one. The app also uses your precise location to confirm your state, and may block you on a VPN.

Is Fanatics Markets gambling?

Legally, Fanatics says no. Its contracts are derivatives listed on a CFTC-registered exchange, supervised federally rather than by state gaming boards. In your wallet, the line is thin. You pay for an outcome, and if you are wrong you lose all of it.

Fanatics' own disclosure adds a point few people know. The CFTC has not approved any sports contract on any exchange. Exchanges list them by self-certifying. The CFTC has not decided whether any of them involves activity the law prohibits.

Then ask who takes the other side. On a sportsbook, the house does. Here, another CDNA member does, through the order book. That member can be Fanatics' own affiliate, Morton St. Market Maker, which may trade against your orders. Fanatics discloses this conflict and says information barriers keep your order data from the affiliate.

Fanatics also runs a licensed sportsbook, and the two are tied together. A self-exclusion or limit on Fanatics Sportsbook applies to Markets too. Courts are split on the bigger question, as our prediction market legal tracker shows.

Fanatics Markets lawsuits and complaints

We found no lawsuit or regulator action naming Fanatics Markets or its broker. NFA records list no actions against either firm, and the broker's own disclosure reports none. The fights are over its exchange, CDNA. A ruling against CDNA can close a state for every app that uses it.

• Oct 3, 2025
  Nevada: CDNA loses its bid to block the state A federal judge refused to stop Nevada from enforcing its gaming laws against CDNA's sports contracts. CDNA stopped offering them in Nevada from November 3, 2025, and appealed. Fanatics never launched there. Source
• Feb 13, 2026
  A class action against CDNA Two California traders sued CDNA and Foris DAX, part of Crypto.com, in federal court in Florida. They say its sports contracts are illegal sports gambling in over two dozen states. The suit does not name Fanatics. Source
• Apr 23, 2026
  Wisconsin sues CDNA Wisconsin's attorney general sued CDNA and Foris DAX, calling their sports contracts illegal betting. The state wants them blocked for Wisconsin customers. Fanatics listed Wisconsin that month, but its list no longer does. Source
• Jul 22, 2026
  CDNA sues Washington first Washington has said since December 2025 that prediction markets are not authorized there. CDNA sued the attorney general and gambling commissioners to keep state gambling law off its contracts. Fanatics no longer lists Washington. Source

Fanatics has not said why Washington and Wisconsin left its list. Either way, the lesson holds. Check your state before you trade, and again before you travel.

How Fanatics Markets works

Every market is a yes-or-no question with a named source for the result. A winning contract pays $1 and a losing one pays nothing. So the price reads as the market's probability. The fee comes on top, as the example shows.

You can sell before the result if a buyer is there. Market orders fill within a price tolerance you set, or they cancel. Limit orders rest on the book, good until canceled or immediate-or-cancel. Combos are priced by request for quote from liquidity providers.

Two rules catch live traders. Orders placed after an event starts wait three seconds by default before reaching the book. And trading runs around the clock, except a maintenance hour from 4 to 5 a.m. ET every Saturday.

Fanatics Markets fees, with the arithmetic

Up to 2¢ a contract near 50¢, less toward either end. The schedule lists maximums by price. On $100 at 50¢, which buys 200 contracts, that comes to up to $4.00.

Read the schedule and one thing stands out: it is flat. Every price from 20¢ to 80¢ carries the same 2¢ maximum per contract. Below 20¢ it falls, to 1.6¢ at 10¢ and 0.34¢ at 1¢. The same happens above 80¢.

You pay it when you buy and again when you sell early. Each order's total rounds up to the next cent, so a single contract costs at least 1¢. For scale, Kalshi's standard taker fee tops out at 1.75¢, at 50¢. See how Kalshi's fees work.

Bank and wire deposits carry no Fanatics fee. Debit card, Apple Pay, PayPal and Venmo deposits can cost up to 2%. Withdrawals to your payment methods are free, though your bank may charge for wires. Compare every app on our prediction market fees page.

Does Fanatics Markets pay out? Withdrawal times and holds

Yes. Each winning contract pays $1, and markets typically settle within an hour of the event ending. Two edge cases matter. A game postponed or canceled past 48 hours settles at the prior week's average price, not as a refund. A tie with no tie outcome pays 50¢ to each side.

Online banking withdrawals take 3 to 5 business days. A saved debit card, PayPal or Venmo takes 2 to 3. There is no Fanatics fee. You can only withdraw to a card or wallet you have deposited with and saved.

Fanatics publishes no hold schedule. Its wallet terms let it hold or refuse transfers to comply with the law or stop fraud. CDNA can also correct a settlement made in error, debiting or crediting your balance. PayPal and Venmo are not offered in Utah.

What you can trade on Fanatics Markets

Sports come first. The menu covers football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, motorsports, fighting, esports, chess and sailing. Game markets include winners, spreads, totals and player props, plus combos.

Outside sports, it lists politics, economy, crypto and culture markets. All are CDNA contracts, and Fanatics offers a selection of them. You can browse them on its website without an account.

Fanatics publishes no public price feed, so its quotes do not appear in our live prediction market odds.

Where Fanatics Markets is available

Fanatics Markets works in 22 states and four territories, for adults 21 and over. They are Alabama, Alaska, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi and Nebraska. The rest are New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah. The territories are American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

The map follows its sportsbook. Fanatics launched Markets only where Fanatics Sportsbook was not live. Several states had warned sportsbooks that prediction markets could put their licenses at risk.

Location decides, not residence. You can deposit, withdraw and view markets from any US state. Outside the 22, you cannot buy contracts or sell open ones before the event ends.

The list has shrunk. At launch in December 2025, Fanatics named 24 states, including Washington and Wisconsin. Both were still listed in April 2026. Both are gone now, and we found no explanation from Fanatics.

Some remaining states are fighting prediction markets too. Minnesota passed a law this year banning them. A federal judge blocked it in July, in a case brought by the CFTC, Polymarket US and Kalshi. In Utah, a federal judge ruled in August that state gambling law reaches Kalshi's sports contracts.

Those rulings bind other companies, not Fanatics. But any order against CDNA applies to Fanatics Markets, because CDNA is its only exchange. Check whether prediction markets are legal in your state before you fund an account.

Not legal advice.

The Fanatics Markets app and support

On the App Store, Fanatics Markets rates 4.7 from 1,160 ratings. On Google Play it rates 3.8 from 110. Both were read on September 25, 2026.

Fanatics Markets runs on iOS, Android and the web. Since September 2, 2026, it also sits inside the Fanatics Sports & Casino app. That app puts sportsbook, casino and markets under one account and one FanCash balance.

Support is thin. You fill in a web form or email support@fanaticsmarkets.com, and Fanatics promises a reply within 24 to 48 hours. Its help center lists no live chat or phone line.

The limits are broad, though. You can set deposit and session limits, or take a timeout of 3 to 365 days. You can also self-exclude for 1 year, 5 years or life. Self-exclusion also covers Fanatics' betting and gaming products.

Fanatics Markets pros and cons

Fanatics Markets vs the alternatives

Fanatics Markets ranks twelfth of 15 apps in our ranking of prediction market apps, at 3.7 out of 5. That does not make it wrong for everyone.

Kalshi runs its own exchange and clearinghouse, open in far more states, with a taker fee that peaks at 1.75¢. DraftKings and Robinhood both route some orders to CDNA, the exchange Fanatics uses.

Fanatics' edge is its ecosystem. If you already use Fanatics Sportsbook or collect FanCash, one account covers both. If you live outside its 22 states, it is not an option.

Our verdict: is Fanatics Markets worth it?

Fanatics Markets is legit. It is a registered broker on a regulated exchange, with a fee cap you can read in advance. Markets settle quickly, and the limits and self-exclusion tools are broad.

The risks are specific. Idle cash can sit in a wallet outside CFTC protection. An affiliate may trade against you. And your state can drop off the list, as Washington and Wisconsin did.

If those risks suit you, check whether prediction markets are legal in your state first.