Arena is being built by a small team within Meta and is expected to operate independently of the company's social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The application would initially use a video game-style points system instead of real money bets, although the company would not have ruled out introducing bets with money in the future, according to two employees with knowledge of the subject.
The sources pointed out that the project is considered experimental, but has been designated as an internal priority while Meta seeks new ways of growth and interaction with users.
The movement occurs in a context in which prediction markets have become one of the fastest growing segments within online trading and betting. Kalshi and Polymarket together generated a volume of operations of 50 billion dollars in 2025, with total volumes already exceeding 130 billion this year.
Meta reported 3.5 billion daily active users in April through its app family and plans to leverage that audience to boost Arena adoption.
The initiative aligns with Zuckerberg's long-term strategy of responding to changes in online user behavior by launching products that replicate emerging digital trends. Meta is also testing other standalone applications, including Meta Photos, a content creation app powered by artificial intelligence.
The company had already experimented with prediction markets through Forecast, a collaborative prediction application launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forecast used a point-based system and was discontinued in 2022.
The growing popularity of prediction markets has attracted new participants ranging from gaming operators and cryptocurrency exchanges to media companies. The brokerage firm Bernstein estimated in April that the sector could expand to reach 1 trillion dollars in annual volume of operations by the end of the decade.
The growth of the industry has also generated greater regulatory scrutiny. Authorities and legislators in the United States have expressed concern that prediction markets could create opportunities for insider trading and market manipulation.
In April, federal prosecutors in New York charged a member of the U.S. Special Forces. US to use confidential information to place bets linked to a secret operation directed at Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Prosecutors alleged that the operator earned more than $400,000 from those bets.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal criticized Meta's alleged plans in a social media post. "Meta copied the slot machines to make the boys addicted to Instagram. Now Zuckerberg is turning his company into a prediction market," Blumenthal wrote. He also described Meta's business model as "benefiting from addiction."
Meta has not publicly confirmed the project, and people familiar with the matter warned that Arena is still under development and may not be launched.
Dingnews.com 26/06/2026