Meta Is Apparently Jealous of Kalshi, Polymarket

Mark Zuckerberg is taking another swing at prediction markets, this time with a no-cash app called Arena. Meta has assigned a small team to build the stand-alone smartphone app, modeled on fast-growing platforms Polymarket and Kalshi, staffers tell the New York Times. Users would bet with points, not money—at least initially—on outcomes ranging from sports to politics, with Meta planning to funnel its massive social-media audience toward the new product.

CNBC reports that stocks for sports betting sites DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment, parent company of FanDuel, fell upon the news, with the former dipping more than 2% and the latter falling just under that amount. Arena is one of several experimental Meta apps in the works, including an AI-powered "Meta Photos" tool, per the Times. Meta tried a similar prediction app, Forecast, during the pandemic but shut it down in 2022.

The renewed push comes as prediction markets boom, and attract regulators. Quartz notes that Congress has opened a probe into Polymarket and Kalshi on insider-trading suspicions, while a US Special Forces soldier has been accused of taking advantage of knowledge he had on a classified military operation to take in upward of $400,000. Sen. Richard Blumenthal blasted Meta's plans, accusing the company of "profiting from addiction," per the Times. Meta declined to comment.