Meta is developing a separate mobile application called Arena, which will allow users to make predictions about political, sports, entertainment and world events. According to The New York Times, the project is one of Mark Zuckerberg’s top priorities and will be part of the company’s strategy to create standalone applications focused on new trends in online communities.

There will be no real money bets at the start of the Arena: users will receive and spend virtual points similar to in-game rewards, but the company does not rule out full money bets in the future. This move will put Meta in direct competition with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, as well as crypto brokers Coinbase, Kraken, and Robinhood, which are actively developing the direction of forecast markets. Polymarket became especially popular during the US presidential election in 2024, when billions of dollars were flowing through its cryptocurrency platform.

To promote Arena Meta plans to use its huge audience: more than 3.56 billion people daily use at least one of the company’s services, and some of this traffic will be redirected to the new application. This is not the tech giant’s first attempt in the field - earlier, during the pandemic, Meta had already launched a similar product, Forecast, but closed it down in 2022. In parallel, the company is testing the Meta Photos application to generate AI content. Now, amid the explosion of predictive platforms, Meta intends to successfully integrate this format into its ecosystem.

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