Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to launch its own prediction market. By Chevaugn Tech Pro.
Prediction market trading has exploded to $130 billion this year, and Mark Zuckerberg wants Meta to grab a piece of it by building a smartphone app called Arena, the New York Times reported.
Zuckerberg dispatched a small team to develop the app, which would operate independently from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, two employees with knowledge of the plans told the Times. The internal codename is Arena.
Insiders described the project as "experimental but a top priority."
Users would initially place bets using a video-game-style points system rather than real money, though the company has not ruled out adding cash wagers later. The points-first approach sidesteps immediate gambling regulations but also generates no direct revenue.
Meta declined to comment. The move follows a familiar Zuckerberg playbook: identify a fast-growing competitor, clone its model, and funnel Meta's 3.56 billion daily users toward it. The same strategy produced Instagram Stories (Snapchat), Reels (TikTok), and Threads (X).
Results have been mixed. Meta has struggled to get users to download standalone apps before, with projects focused on podcasts, travel, music, and matchmaking gaining little traction.
Prediction markets are a different beast. Kalshi and Polymarket drew a combined $50 billion in trades in 2025.
This year, that number has already surpassed $130 billion. Kalshi, founded in 2018, announced a $22 billion valuation in May, double what it reported six months earlier. The total value of bets on prediction market apps hit nearly $30 billion last month alone, a 588% jump year-over-year.
Meta tried this once before. In 2020, it launched Forecast, a crowdsourced prediction app that used points instead of money.
"Forecasters get points when they join and then regularly get refreshes as they play," researchers wrote at the time. "There's a leaderboard that tracks total point 'profit.'"
The company shut it down in 2022. The regulatory market has shifted dramatically since. Federal prosecutors in April charged a U.S. Special Forces soldier with using classified information to place bets on Polymarket about the operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
He made more than $400,000, according to prosecutors. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched a probe into Polymarket and Kalshi last month over insider trading enforcement.
States have also sued prediction markets over alleged gambling law violations. The current administration, which supports the industry, has countersued those states.
Meta is entering a market where the legal ground is actively shifting under everyone's feet. The project could still be killed before launch, sources cautioned the Times. But Zuckerberg is betting that prediction markets are worth the risk, and the scrutiny.
