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The White House warned staff members against using nonpublic government information to place prediction-market bets.

The CFTC issued an enforcement advisory in February after cases involving the alleged misuse of nonpublic information on prediction platforms. In a case previously covered by USA Herald, a MrBeast video editor was accused of trading based on advance knowledge of videos that had not yet been released.

Prediction markets reward accuracy. Without meaningful safeguards, they may also reward access to secrets.

Meta Has Experimented With Predictions Before

Arena would not be Meta’s first attempt to build a product around forecasting future events. In June 2020, Facebook’s experimental NPE Team introduced an app called Forecast. Users could pose questions, discuss possible outcomes and spend in-app points on predictions involving world events.

Forecast emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public attention was focused on infection rates, vaccine development and government restrictions. It was framed as a way to collect and share informed forecasts rather than as a real-money trading platform.

Arena appears to revive parts of that idea in a dramatically different environment.

Prediction markets are now a multibillion-dollar industry. Event contracts are increasingly available through mainstream financial platforms, and political markets can generate enormous attention before major government decisions.

A points-based version of Arena could allow Meta to test demand, user behavior and engagement before deciding whether to pursue real-money contracts.

It could also help the company avoid some of the immediate regulatory complications that would accompany launching a financial product.

Regulators Are Still Drawing the Lines

Meta would be entering the prediction-market business while federal regulators are still deciding how parts of the industry should be governed.

On June 10, the CFTC requested public comment on proposed changes involving event contracts connected to activities such as gaming. The proposal would create a process allowing the agency to evaluate certain contracts and determine whether they conflict with the public interest.

The agency said more than $25 billion in prediction-market contracts were traded on CFTC-registered platforms during 2025.

The CFTC has emphasized that regulated markets must maintain surveillance systems and protections against manipulation, fraud and the misuse of nonpublic information.

Those responsibilities would become especially significant if a company with Meta’s reach entered the industry.