Meta (NASDAQ:META) was in talks with Kalshi about a potential acquisition prior to its decision to launch its own prediction market.
According to reports, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour in 2025. While the details remain unclear, the discussion fell apart with Meta deciding to launch their own prediction market called Arena and Kalshi going it alone.
Arena is said to not accept money on bets and event questions will be driven by artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, Kalshi is growing rapidly with annualized trading volume nearing $200 billion and revenue topping $1.5 billion. Active monthly users are approximately 5 million individuals.Valuation is around $40 billion. Kalshi is also said to be considering an IPO.
While sports betting dominates the event contracts, a more recent entry into crypto perpetuals have given users another reason to register with the platform.
Meta shares are on the rise today not because of prediction markets but because of reports the platform will soon offer cloud computing services thus competing with the likes of Amazon’s AWS platform.