Zuckerberg Eyed Kalshi Buyout Before Developing Meta’s Own Prediction App

How a buy-then-build turned into a contested market

NPR reported Monday that Zuckerberg met Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour past twelvemonth to sermon buying the speech arsenic its idiosyncratic numbers climbed, citing 3 radical who were not authorized to talk publicly. The talks ne'er precocious to a ceremonial offer. Accounts of the illness diverge: immoderate sources said Mansour was unwilling to sell, portion others said Meta judged the ineligible and regulatory questions astir Kalshi excessively messy to instrumentality on.

Rather than locomotion distant from the sector, Zuckerberg directed unit to physique a standalone app, internally named Arena. The plan marks a deliberate departure from the marketplace leaders, arsenic it volition usage play wealth alternatively than real-cash wagers arsenic users conjecture connected quality events and trending topics. Reportedly, Meta’s artificial-intelligence systems volition make the questions and settling outcomes. Neither Meta nor Kalshi commented connected the talks.

The real-money stakes and the associated favoritism betwixt fiscal and gambling products has drawn dozens of ineligible challenges successful conscionable the United States, and produced an adjacent much hostile regulatory posture successful Europe. Minnesota became the archetypal authorities to marque it a felony for specified platforms to operate, and the U.S. Justice Department has opened 2 insider-trading cases tied to Polymarket – 1 involving a special-forces worker accused of trading connected classified accusation astir the seizure of Venezuelan person Nicolás Maduro, different a Google worker accused of utilizing confidential search-trend data. By keeping currency retired of Arena, Meta aims to debar the classification combat altogether, though it besides removes the nett motive for users.

Kalshi raised $1 cardinal successful a Series F circular successful May led by Coatue, with Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and Paradigm participating, astatine a $22 cardinal valuation – doubling from conscionable 5 months ago. Kalshi told Bloomberg its annualized gross tops $1.5 billion, and said organization trading had risen 800% implicit six months. Rival Polymarket, which runs an offshore speech extracurricular U.S. regulatory reach, was valued astatine $10.7 billion, according to Pitchbook.

Sector volumes person swung sharply done 2026. Prediction-market platforms recorded roughly $8.6 cardinal successful taker measurement successful April and astir $29.8 cardinal successful notional terms, with Kalshi overtaking Polymarket for the monthly lead, according to Dune Analytics data. Monthly figures peaked adjacent $25.7 cardinal successful March, and the full 2025 manufacture volume topped $63 billion.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argued astatine proceedings past twelvemonth that Meta runs a “buy oregon bury” strategy, either acquiring young rivals oregon cloning them to compression them out. A justice sided with Zuckerberg’s company, uncovering it broke nary contention instrumentality successful acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp; the FTC is appealing. Meta besides struck a concern with Kalshi successful March, allowing its markets to integrate with the Threads app. Now, it seems the calculus moved from “buy” to “bury.”