Mark Zuckerberg · Polymarket · Meta · New York · Facebook · CryptoSlate
In 2020, Meta launched Forecast, a points-based crowdsourced prediction app focused on current events during the early COVID
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Meta shut it down in 2022, before Polymarket's breakout during the 2024 presidential election, Kalshi's legal victory over the CFTC on election contracts, and the sector crossing $50 billion in annual volume.
Key facts
- Reality Labs, the division tasked with delivering that vision, reported operating losses of $17.7 billion in 2024 and $19.2 billion in 2025, bringing cumulative losses to nearly $90 billion
- Kalshi and Polymarket have already pushed combined monthly trading volume to roughly $24 billion in 2026, with current projections putting annual prediction-market volume above $130 billion
- Meta shut it down in 2022, before Polymarket's breakout during the 2024 presidential election, Kalshi's legal victory over the CFTC on election contracts, and the sector crossing $50 billion
- Horizon Worlds, the flagship social VR platform, was reported in 2022 to have fallen below 200,000 monthly active users after Meta had targeted 500,000 and later revised that goal lower
Summary
01 The New York Times says Meta has a small team building Arena, a points-based prediction app for politics, sports and world affairs. 02 Prediction markets already show real demand, and Meta's 3.56 billion daily users could turn a niche into mass behavior. 03 But Meta's trust gap, plus election and misinformation scrutiny, could make Arena a regulatory target before it gains scale. The New York Times reported on June 23 that Mark Zuckerberg directed a small team to build a prediction market app, internally called Arena, where users would forecast outcomes in politics, sports, and world affairs using points. The company that renamed itself for a virtual world that has produced nearly $90 billion in cumulative Reality Labs operating losses is now chasing prediction markets, a category with real demand, a proven user base, and enough regulatory complexity to make this either the smartest pivot Meta has attempted or the most familiar kind of expensive mistake.