Arena, Meta's Point Betting App: How Zuckerberg Challenges Polymarket and Kalshi

In recent hours, Mark Zuckerberg has assigned a small team at Meta to develop a smartphone app dedicated to predictive markets, internally known as Arena. This was revealed by the New York Times, and the news was enough to shake the sector's stocks.

At least in the initial phase, Arena would not use real money: the predictions would be made using a points system reminiscent of video games. However, Meta does not rule out introducing real-money betting later. According to CNBC, an internal source has confidentially confirmed that the app will, for now, remain devoid of real cash. Arena would be developed as an independent application, separate from Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

In 2020, the company had already launched Forecast, another points-based prediction app that also lacked real money but was closed in 2022 after receiving little feedback.

Meta's Leverage is the Numbers

The group's apps count over 3.56 billion active users every day, and the idea is to grow Arena by directing part of that audience from existing platforms. Internally, the project is described as experimental but a top priority, even though it may never see the light of day. Arena is just one of the new apps that Meta is testing: another is Meta Photos, a content generation tool using artificial intelligence.

A Booming Sector

Interest is rising as predictive markets experience a phase of significant expansion. The combined trading volume between Polymarket and Kalshi has quadrupled, rising from less than $5 billion to $24 billion a month between September 2025 and April 2026. On the regulatory front, on June 10, 2026, the CFTC proposed new rules that would ban contracts related to war, murder, and terrorism.

In March 2026, Kalshi and Polymarket introduced new controls on insider trading following a series of incidents: a Google engineer was indicted by the Department of Justice for having used internal data to profit on Polymarket, and a U.S. soldier was charged for betting on Venezuelan political developments. Meanwhile, competitors are moving: X forged a partnership with Polymarket in the summer of 2025, while DraftKings launched its own Predictions platform in December 2025.

The market's reaction has fallen on rivals: upon the news, DraftKings shares dropped over 2%, Flutter Entertainment saw a decline of about 2%, and Robinhood also fell. For DraftKings, this hit comes on top of a challenging year: the stock has lost 37% since the start of 2026, and its revenue guidance for the year ($6.5-7 billion) fell short of analyst expectations, which stood at $7.33 billion.

For now, Arena remains an internal experiment that may never reach the public. But the mere prospect of a new player with over 3.56 billion daily users was enough to affect the stocks of competitors in a market that has quadrupled its volumes between September and April.