Meta Builds Prediction Markets App 'Arena,' Eyes Polymarket and Kalshi Partnerships

Mark Zuckerberg has quietly made a prediction markets app called Arena one of Meta's top internal priorities, directing his lieutenants to explore partnerships with two leading platforms — Polymarket and Kalshi — even as his company builds a competing product. Three employees with knowledge of the matter, speaking anonymously due to NDAs, confirmed the outreach, though the shape of any potential partnership remains unclear. All three companies declined to comment.

Arena is designed to let users bet on sports, culture, entertainment, politics, and finance against friends and family. Crucially, Meta is positioning Arena as distinct from Polymarket and Kalshi because it won't involve real-money wagers — instead running on video-game-style 'points.' The target audience is 18- to 34-year-olds, and Meta's internal goal is to reach at least 100 million monthly active 'predictors.' The app is currently in internal testing and may never launch publicly, but if it does, it will debut as a stand-alone app before being woven into Facebook, Messenger, Reels, Stories, and the News Feed.

Meta VP of Product Ime Archibong, who is leading the Arena initiative, framed the project in an internal post last month as a social behavior play rather than a gambling product. His argument: when prediction markets are embedded in a personalized social feed, betting starts to feel less like financial speculation and more like expressing an opinion — a way to show friends how well you read the world. Archibong wrote that influencers will drive volume and culture will drive attention, and that the social conversation itself becomes the reward. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, believes betting behavior could drive broader engagement across Meta's apps — sparking debates, encouraging sharing when users win, and creating competitive dynamics through leaderboards.

The project is generating real tension both inside and outside Meta. Internally, some employees have argued on message boards that embedding prediction markets into the world's largest social network crosses an ethical line and could serve as a gateway to harder gambling. Others feel comfortable with it precisely because real money isn't involved — at least not yet. Externally, prediction markets are under growing legal and regulatory pressure. In April, federal prosecutors charged a U.S. Special Forces member with using classified intelligence to bet on Polymarket about the secret plan to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, netting over $400,000. Senator Richard Blumenthal called Meta's business model one of 'profiting from addiction,' and more than a dozen Democratic senators sent a letter urging Congress to allow states to regulate prediction markets independently of the CFTC.