Meta plans Arena prediction app to target young adults

Mark Zuckerberg has directed Meta staff to build Arena, a standalone prediction-markets app that would sit outside Facebook and Instagram and is aimed squarely at younger adults. The product is expected to launch with a video game-style points system rather than real-money wagering, a design that could let Meta test demand before deciding whether to add cash betting later.

Meta’s internal plan is to use its existing social platforms as a traffic engine for Arena, steering Facebook and Instagram users toward the new app.

Pew Research Center put combined monthly global trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket at less than $5 billion in September 2025 and about $24 billion in April 2026. Event contracts have existed in U.S. regulated markets for more than two decades. In February 2026, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s enforcement division issued an advisory after public cases involving misuse of nonpublic information and fraud tied to KalshiEX.

By starting with points instead of cash, Arena would avoid some of the immediate gambling questions that surround real-money prediction markets while still letting Meta build habits around forecasts, scores and social rivalry. If the company later adds money-based betting, the app could enter a crowded and more closely watched field already attracting traders, media attention and political scrutiny.

Shares of DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment fell after the Meta prediction-markets report. Meta itself has spent the past year trying to win back younger adults on Facebook: in June 2024, it said more than 40 million adults ages 18 to 29 in the United States and Canada were checking Facebook daily, its highest young-adult usage in three years.