Meta is reportedly developing a standalone prediction market app internally known as Arena. Two unnamed Meta employees said CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally assembled a small team for the project, which is aimed at predictions across politics, finance, sports, and even military operations. That would put the company in direct competition with Polymarket and Kalshi, the two biggest names in the category.
The clearest difference from those rivals is the planned launch model. Arena is expected to start without real-money wagering. Instead, users would earn points for correct predictions, making the first version look more like a game than a trading venue. The report says Meta has not ruled out adding real-money betting later, but the points-based setup would help the company avoid the heavier regulatory burden tied to cash-based markets.
A standalone app with Meta-scale distribution behind it
Arena is being built as a separate product rather than folded into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger. That separation appears intentional. Even so, Meta could still use its existing platforms to push traffic toward the app, giving Arena a distribution edge that few competitors can match. As of April 2026, Meta’s family of apps had 3.56 billion daily active users.
People familiar with the effort described it as both experimental and a top internal priority. That combination stands out. The product is still early, but it appears to have strong backing inside the company.
Meta enters a market that has expanded rapidly
The timing lines up with sharp growth in event-based trading. According to the report, Kalshi and Polymarket generated a combined $50 billion in trading volume in 2025, and that figure has already gone past $130 billion in 2026. In June 2026 alone, Kalshi recorded about $18.36 billion in contract volume. Polymarket posted $6.77 billion in non-US volume over the same period, plus roughly $2 billion in US-based activity.
Bernstein analysts project the broader event-betting market could reach $1 trillion in annual trading volume by the end of the decade. Competition has been building as well. Robinhood and Interactive Brokers have launched event contracts, and crypto exchange Gemini has entered the segment. The report also says Donald Trump Jr. reportedly advises both Polymarket and Kalshi, while the Trump family’s media company has launched its own prediction market site.
Political criticism arrived quickly as regulatory pressure builds
News of Arena drew immediate attention from lawmakers. Senator Richard Blumenthal criticized Meta in public comments, saying the company was moving deeper into products designed to drive engagement through speculative behavior. He had also accused Polymarket of “flagrantly violating federal law” while operating offshore and paying influencers to promote betting activity to US users.
That reaction comes as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is already examining how Polymarket and Kalshi police insider trading and other abuses. The issue is not abstract. In April 2026, the Department of Justice said a former special operations officer used classified information to make $400,000 trading a market tied to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Separately, Kalshi reported former Congressman George Santos to federal prosecutors after he publicly said he would attend a presidential address and then bet against his own attendance.
Even with a points-only structure, any new product entering this category is likely to inherit the same scrutiny already surrounding prediction markets.
Traditional betting stocks fell after the report
The market response was immediate. Shares of DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment, the parent company of FanDuel, declined after the report on Meta’s plans. That suggests established sports betting operators already view prediction markets as a real competitive threat, and a Meta-backed entrant could intensify that pressure.
It remains unclear whether Arena will reach a public launch. The report notes that Meta has a history of shelving ambitious internal projects that fail to maintain traction. Another open question is whether the points system stays in place or evolves into real-money betting, which would change the regulatory picture in a major way. How Polymarket and Kalshi respond is also still unknown.