Mark Zuckerberg is preparing Meta for a move into the rapidly expanding prediction markets industry. According to The New York Times, citing sources familiar with the matter, the company has assembled a small internal team to build a standalone mobile app aimed at competing with established players in the sector.
The project, currently operating under the codename Arena, is expected to launch with a points-based system rather than real-money wagering. Still, company leadership is reportedly keeping the door open for a transition to a full commercial betting model later on.
A standalone product beyond Meta’s social platforms
Arena is being developed independently from Meta’s core ecosystem, including Facebook and Instagram. At the same time, the company plans to use its massive existing user base to accelerate adoption once the product launches.
Meta’s family of apps currently attracts more than 3.56 billion daily active users, but executives increasingly view that figure as approaching a growth ceiling. As a result, Zuckerberg has been actively exploring new product categories capable of driving engagement beyond the company’s traditional social media business.
Meta returns to the prediction market business
Alongside Arena, Meta is also experimenting with several other standalone products, including Meta Photos, a separate app focused on AI-powered media generation. The company has declined to comment publicly on the new prediction market initiative.
This is not Meta’s first attempt to enter the space. In 2020, the company launched Forecast, a crowdsourced prediction platform built around pandemic-related forecasting, before shutting the project down in 2022.
Since then, the industry has grown dramatically. In 2025, prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket generated a combined $50 billion in trading volume. In 2026, that figure has already surpassed $130 billion, turning prediction markets into one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital economy.