Fliff and Onyx Odds Apply to Become Futures Brokers

Fliff and Onyx Odds both applied on August 12, 2026 to become federally registered futures brokers, and neither has told the players holding sweeps balances anything. Both rulebooks expire an untouched balance after 30 days, and both say a notice ending the sweepstakes need only be posted inside the product.

We read the National Futures Association's public BASIC registry and both operators' own sweepstakes rules on August 14. The filings are real and dated. What is missing from both companies' player-facing pages is any mention of them.

What exactly did Fliff and Onyx file with the NFA?

Two new entities appeared in NFA's registry on the same afternoon, each seeking the same three things: registration as a futures commission merchant, NFA membership, and swap-firm status.

Both new records read "FUTURES COMMISSION MERCHANT PENDING", "NFA MEMBER PENDING" and "SWAP FIRM PENDING", all effective August 12. Neither carries a current registration type yet, and neither shows any regulatory action.

What is a futures commission merchant, and why does it matter here?

It is the category that holds your money. Onyx's own homepage explains the difference better than we could: it discloses that Onyx Predictions LLC, the introducing broker it already runs, "does not accept or hold customer funds", and that customer accounts are instead "carried and maintained" by NinjaTrader Clearing, "a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant".

So Onyx already has the registration that lets it introduce trades. What it filed for on August 12 is the registration that would let it carry the accounts itself. Fliff is further back than that: BASIC holds no completed registration of any kind for Fliff, so its application is a first one.

Neither company has said what it intends to do with the registration, and we are not guessing. What is on the record is that both asked for the licence category that holds customer balances, in the same week, while both still run coin products.

How are Fliff FCM and Onyx Markets connected to the sweeps apps?

Through the ownership records, which BASIC publishes alongside the applications.

Onyx Markets LLC lists Tsos Technologies, Inc. as a principal holding a 10% or greater financial interest, and the same company holds the same interest in Onyx Predictions LLC. Onyx's own site closes that loop: its footer states that "Onyx Games LLC and Onyx Predictions LLC are affiliated companies under the common ownership of Tsos Technologies, Inc.", and Onyx Games LLC is the named sponsor of the Onyx Odds sweepstakes. The chief executive listed as a 10% principal of Onyx Markets is the same person listed as a 10% principal of Onyx Predictions. The two entities also share an address, 169 Madison Ave, Suite 11498, New York, though a shared suite number proves less than a shared owner does.

Fliff's chain is shorter. Fliff FCM LLC is registered at 840 First Avenue, Suite 400, King of Prussia, PA, the address Fliff Inc gives as sweepstakes sponsor in its own rules, and BASIC lists Fliff Inc as a principal of the new entity with a 10% or greater financial interest.

Is Fliff launching a prediction market?

Nothing either company has published says so. CasinoBeats reported Fliff's filing on August 13 as an application for a prediction-market license, and that is the route the sector has been taking: Novig won a CFTC exchange license and then sued New York to keep trading there. The filings themselves are narrower than the framing. Futures commission merchant status governs who may hold customer money, not what contracts a venue lists, and a prediction market is run by an exchange rather than by the broker carrying the account.

That CasinoBeats report does not mention Onyx. The Onyx filing, and every registry detail above, is our own reading of the primary record.

Are Fliff and Onyx Odds shutting down their sweepstakes?

No, and nobody should read it that way yet. An application is not an approval, and neither company has said it will retire its coins. Fliff's homepage on August 14 still sells the Fliff Cash sweepstakes with no notice attached. Onyx's homepage still lists "Onyx Social Sweepstakes" alongside a prediction product it describes as a private beta. Neither rulebook has been touched since the filings: Fliff's was last updated June 30, 2026, and Onyx's is version 2.1.2, dated July 16, 2026.

What happened last time is the reason to pay attention. When Novig retired Novig Cash and Novig Coins this month, it announced the replacement product and never announced the removal, and balances were converted without notice to account holders. Federal staff are also drawing lines around what the new venues may offer: the CFTC's August 12 advisory on prediction-market incentive programs told exchanges that sweepstakes-style rewards likely break their access rules.

Both rulebooks reserve the right to end the thing you hold. Fliff's section 10.4 says that "in all other cases" it "reserves the right to cancel, suspend and/or modify the Sweepstakes", with any such notice "posted on Fliff on the Platform or at www.getfliff.com". Onyx's rules carry that reservation in the same words and promise notice only "on the Platform".

Does Fliff Cash or Onyx Sweeps Cash expire?

Yes, after 30 days without a login, and that clause is already in force regardless of what the NFA decides. Both operators expire an idle balance after a month, in near-identical wording.

Fliff's section 2.8: "If a Participant does not login to their Customer Account within a 30 day period or their account is otherwise deemed inactive in the sole discretion of Fliff, Participant will forfeit any balance of Fliff Cash. Unless Fliff agrees and decides otherwise, Fliff Cash is only valid for thirty (30) days from the date the Participant last logged on to their Customer Account and will thereafter automatically expire."

Onyx's rules say the same with two words swapped: a participant who does not log in within 30 days "will forfeit any balance of Sweeps Cash", and Sweeps Cash "is only valid for thirty (30) days from the date the Participant last logged on".

A forgotten app is therefore an empty one, and that clause bites hardest on exactly the players who would not hear about a wind-down.

How long does a Fliff or Onyx redemption take?

Both rulebooks state up to 30 days to pay a single request, and neither lets you empty an account at once. Note that the weekly and monthly figures below are rights each operator reserves rather than fixed ceilings, so the terms you actually get can be tighter or looser than the document.

A $3,000 Fliff balance is not a $3,000 payout button. Fliff processes one request per account in any five-day period, tells you payment can take up to 30 days, and reserves the right to hold redemptions to $1,000 a week, which puts three weekly requests in front of you before the last one starts processing. If you are working through how sweeps coin redemption works for the first time, the play-through condition is the step people miss: coins collected free are not redeemable until they have been played. One request per five days is also a slower cadence than High 5 and Spree, which allow one cash-out per 48 hours; our sweeps casinos ranked by payout speed covers the brands that publish shorter windows.

Onyx's version of the same section is looser than it looks. The clause reserving the $1,000-a-week and $5,000-a-month limits names "Onyx Cash", which the same document elsewhere says is not redeemable at all, while the balance you would actually be cashing out is called Sweeps Cash. That is the standard two-coin split between a play currency and a redeemable one, and Onyx's own limits clause attaches to the wrong half of it. Its Maximum Redemption clause caps a Sweepstakes Entry Period at "US $5,000 in Florida" and gives no figure for any other state. And its minimum is promised but never printed: a balance is redeemable "subject to maximum and minimum prize redemption amounts stated in these Official Rules", and no minimum appears anywhere in them. The floor on an Onyx redemption is not knowable from the document that is supposed to state it.

Which states are blocked from Fliff and Onyx Odds?

Fliff's rules exclude 20 states, Onyx's exclude 16, and Onyx's 16 all sit inside Fliff's 20. Fliff adds Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky and Mississippi on top, none of which our state pages class as banned.

Both lists run past the states that actually banned the model. Colorado has no sweepstakes ban and is off both. So are Michigan, Washington and West Virginia, which our state pages class as restricted rather than banned. Banned states are on the lists too, Nevada, New York and California among them. We have written before on the blocks that go beyond state bans.

Onyx's two documents also disagree with each other. Excluding 16 states leaves 35 jurisdictions open, but the availability list on Onyx's homepage names 33 for the sweepstakes and leaves out Illinois and Maryland, neither of which its rules exclude. Nothing on either page explains the gap, so an Illinois or Maryland player is eligible under the rulebook and absent from the map.

For alternatives that are not mid-pivot, Legendz and Sportzino are the sweeps sportsbooks we rate, and our ranked list of sweepstakes casinos covers the wider field.

What should Fliff and Onyx players do now?

Three steps, in this order:

1. Log in. That alone resets the 30-day expiry clock at both operators, and it is the only step that costs nothing.
2. Check whether your balance has cleared play-through. Coins collected free are not redeemable until they have been played at least once, so a balance that looks redeemable may not be.
3. File the redemption now rather than after an announcement. On the terms above, a four-figure balance takes weeks of separate requests to clear, and processing can add another 30 days on top.

Both rulebooks allow a wind-down notice to appear only inside the app you may not open, which is what makes step one worth repeating every month whether or not you plan to play.

Sources & documents

• NFA BASIC profile, Fliff FCM LLC, NFA ID 0580535
• NFA BASIC profile, Onyx Markets LLC, NFA ID 0580601
• NFA BASIC profile, Onyx Predictions LLC, NFA ID 0576468
• NFA BASIC registry search, registration history, principals and address records read August 14, 2026
• Fliff Cash Sweepstakes Rules, last updated June 30, 2026
• Fliff homepage, read August 14, 2026
• Onyx Odds Sweepstakes Rules, version 2.1.2, dated July 16, 2026
• Onyx Odds homepage, read August 14, 2026
• CasinoBeats, August 13, 2026, which covers the Fliff application only

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