Meta Builds “Arena” Prediction Markets App to Take on Polymarket and Kalshi

TLDR:

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has tasked an internal team with building Arena, a standalone prediction markets app. 
• Arena will use a points-based system at launch, avoiding real-money wagering regulatory hurdles.
• Meta’s 3.56 billion daily users across its platforms will serve as Arena’s primary growth engine. 
• Arena revisits Meta’s failed 2020 Forecast app, betting prediction markets are now mainstream. 

Meta is entering the prediction markets space with a new standalone app called Arena, developed under direct orders from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

According to The New York Times, a small internal team has been tasked with building the platform, which would operate separately from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

The app is modeled after fast-growing rivals Polymarket and Kalshi. Initially, Arena will use a points-based system rather than real-money wagering, though monetized participation remains a future possibility.

Zuckerberg Eyes Prediction Markets as Next Growth Frontier

Polymarket and Kalshi have proven the market is real, having become “some of the fastest-growing destinations on the internet” in recent years.

Users on both platforms bet on outcomes ranging from sports results to political events. Zuckerberg has taken note and is now moving to capture a share of that audience. The effort is described by insiders as “experimental but a top priority” within the company.

Arena would function as a standalone smartphone app, separate from Meta’s existing social networking suite. The company plans to leverage its vast daily audience to drive adoption, with “more than 3.56 billion people” visiting one or more Meta apps every day.

That audience gives Meta a distribution advantage few competitors can match. Directing even a fraction of that traffic toward Arena could accelerate growth considerably.

The app is part of a broader initiative by Zuckerberg to identify and build around emerging online behaviors. Meta is also reportedly developing another standalone app called Meta Photos, which uses artificial intelligence to generate new forms of media.

These parallel efforts reflect a strategic shift toward standalone products as Facebook and Instagram grow more video-centric. That shift has left fewer spaces within existing apps to test entirely new product concepts.

Meta’s previous standalone app experiments, launched under the “New Product Experimentation” team in 2019, produced limited results. Projects centered on podcasts, travel, music, and matchmaking gained little traction with users.

The difficulty of getting people to discover and download new apps has long been a structural hurdle for the company. Arena faces that same challenge, even with Meta’s massive built-in audience as a potential funnel.

Arena Revisits a Strategy Meta Has Tried Before

This is not Meta’s first attempt at prediction markets. The company launched Forecast in 2020, a crowdsourced platform designed to aggregate public knowledge during the early Covid-19 pandemic period.

Forecast relied on a points system and invited users to make predictions about global events. Meta shut the app down in 2022 after it failed to gain meaningful traction.

The return to prediction markets suggests Zuckerberg believes the timing is now more favorable. The rapid growth of Polymarket and Kalshi over the past two years has validated the space in ways that were less obvious in 2020.

Market conditions, regulatory shifts, and changing user appetite for outcome-based engagement have all evolved. Meta appears to be betting those shifts create an opening it previously missed.

Arena’s points-based model keeps it in a legally safer category than real-money platforms, at least at launch. That design choice gives Meta room to test the product without navigating the regulatory complexity governing financial betting apps.

If the platform gains users, a monetized version becomes a more viable path forward. The phased approach mirrors how Meta has rolled out monetization features on other products over time.

Whether Arena succeeds where Forecast failed will depend on execution and timing. Prediction markets are now far more mainstream than they were six years ago, lowering the barrier for new users.

However, Meta will need to build trust with an audience that may be skeptical of a points-only system. The competitive landscape is also more crowded, with Polymarket and Kalshi already holding established, loyal user bases.

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