Meta Bets on Prediction Markets as It Hunts for Next-Growth Engine (Report)

Meta is reportedly developing a prediction markets app that it’s calling Arena, which would allow users to place bets on real-world outcomes with points rather than actual money.

The app would be separate from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, the New York Times says, and Meta plans to grow it by channeling its existing social audience to the new product.

Arena App Details

In a June 23 exclusive, the NYT, citing sources with knowledge of the project, said that while Arena was experimental, it is a top priority for Mark Zuckerberg. If it comes to fruition, it would not require users to wager real money, at least initially, with a video game-style points system being the likely starting model. However, the sources did not rule out real-money betting for a later stage.

The app is one of several standalones that Meta is developing, with another called Meta Photos that uses AI to generate new types of media also in the pipeline. This push toward standalone apps reflects a bigger problem for the multinational tech company, as Facebook and Instagram have shifted heavily toward video, leaving fewer spaces inside those platforms to test new product ideas, thus forcing Meta to look outward.

It isn’t the first time Zuckerberg is dabbling with prediction markets. In 2020, his company released Forecast, a crowdsourced prediction market app built around the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that used almost the same points-based structure. However, it shut down in 2022.

Meta has also been chasing emerging social trends with varying results in the last few years, including copying features from Snapchat and TikTok with mixed outcomes, as well as producing apps around podcasts, travel, and matchmaking that largely went nowhere.

The timing feels different now, though, with prediction markets growing at a pace that’s hard to ignore, with Kalshi and Polymarket combining for $51 billion in trades in 2025. That figure is even higher this year, having already hit $130 billion.

Meanwhile, Kalshi completed a $1 billion funding round that valued it at $22 billion, while Polymarket was in talks in April for a $400 million raise at a $15 billion valuation, with Bernstein projecting that by 2030, the total prediction market volumes could hit $1 trillion annually.

A Crowded Field

Meta is not the only company eyeing a slice of the prediction market space, with several crypto companies already getting a head start. In March, Binance added a prediction market functionality to its wallet, while Hyperliquid launched macro prediction markets to its own offerings the following month. Furthermore, Coinbase and Crypto.com also have products in the category, and Trump Media has also announced plans for the same.

However, the sector has also attracted legal heat, with federal prosecutors charging a US Special Forces soldier with using classified information to place bets on Polymarket about a secret plan to capture Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, which netted him $400,000.

There’s also been added scrutiny around data quality and trading behavior on some platforms, with blockchain investigator ZachXBT warning in June that Rain Protocol, a prediction market project valued at close to $9 billion, was showing signs of on-chain price manipulation.

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