Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly pushed Meta to build Arena, a prediction market app likely using points instead of cash wagers.
Prediction Markets News
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told employees to build a prediction market app called Arena, according to a report from The New York Times that cited people familiar with the matter. The app would let users forecast outcomes in politics, sports, entertainment, and world affairs.
Arena would operate apart from Meta's other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Those three platforms together serve billions of users worldwide, but the new app is being built as a separate product.
Unlike Polymarket and Kalshi, the two largest prediction market platforms, Arena would likely use a points system instead of cash wagers. One person familiar with the project said Meta has not ruled out adding real money betting later.
Project Treated as Top Priority
People close to the matter described Arena as experimental but said it ranks as a top priority inside Meta. The project fits into a wider effort by Zuckerberg to build new apps based on emerging social behavior online, they added.
This is not Meta's first attempt at the format. The company launched a similar product called Forecast in 2020. That app asked users to make predictions about current events and trends during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meta shut Forecast down in 2022.
Prediction markets have grown sharply since then. Polymarket gained wide attention during the 2024 US presidential election, when traders used the crypto-based platform to bet on the outcome. That activity drove billions of dollars in trading volume and pushed prediction markets into mainstream political discussion.
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Other Firms Have Entered the Space
The trend extends beyond Meta. Coinbase (COIN) and Kraken, two crypto-native exchanges, have explored their own prediction market offerings. Robinhood (HOOD), a retail brokerage, has introduced event-based contracts tied to political and economic outcomes.
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Regulators have taken notice of the sector's rapid growth. Critics say contracts tied to elections or geopolitical events can blur the line between financial instruments and gambling. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has repeatedly examined whether these event contracts serve a legitimate hedging purpose or amount to prohibited gaming activity.
The scrutiny has intensified following recent controversies. Some individuals have faced accusations of using insider information to profit on Kalshi and Polymarket. Separately, Polymarket paid dozens of social media creators to film themselves placing fake bets and, in some cases, faking wins, according to a Wall Street Journal report published over the weekend.
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