Polymarket and Kalshi have moved $130 billion so far this year. Zuckerberg has said he wants his share

The so-called prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have ceased to be minority apps and have become a global phenomenon, one that has already moved more than 130,000 million so far in 2026. Apart from the ethical issuesit is clear that it is a good business and Meta is preparing an app to get fully into it. What is happening. They tell it in the New York Times. Meta is developing a prediction markets app that they internally call “Arena.” The app is designed as an independent application from the rest of the Meta catalog and, at least for now, it does not work with real money but rather transactions are with a points system as if it were a video game. At the moment, the project is in the experimental phase, but the company has marked it as a high priority. Why is it important. Polymarket and Kalshi have already managed to get rid of the stigma of gambling addiction in betting houses and casinos, disguising their service with an aura of finance and trading. That Meta enters this could be the definitive step towards normalization, turning betting into another activity within online life. Let us remember that Meta has a daily user base of more than 3.5 billion between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Furthermore, this would give Meta a new type of very sensitive data: it is not only what people see and publish, it is also what they think is going to happen. By crossing all the data, they could outline future beliefs and expectations. It’s not the first. Meta already tried his luck in this prediction markets in 2020, when They launched an app called Forecast which allowed predictions to be made about real-world events, such as the COVID pandemic that was ravaging the world at that time. The app was launched only for the United States and Canada and also worked with a points system. Meta’s goal at that time was not to make money, but to make online conversation more rational. “We were interested in prediction markets because, when they work, they help participants be rational,” said Rebeca Kossnick, project leader. It didn’t last long and In October of the same year they closed it. Prediction markets. At that time, prediction markets were niche apps that almost no one knew about, but in recent years they have become almost a cultural phenomenon that has been announced at major events such as the Super Bowl or the Golden Globes. So far this year, Polymarket has been in the news for various reasons, from bets on Maduro’s capture with insider information its recent blockade in Spainwhere legislation requires them to have a gaming license. We have also learned that the vast majority of users are not making money, rather they are losing it, while professional traders take the lion’s share of the pie. Even so, prediction markets are in fashion and Meta wants to take advantage of the trend. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | I don’t bet, I invest: Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

Polymarket and Kalshi have moved $130 billion so far this year. Zuckerberg has said he wants his share

The so-called prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have ceased to be minority apps and have become a global phenomenon, one that has already moved more than 130,000 million so far in 2026. Apart from the ethical issuesit is clear that it is a good business and Meta is preparing an app to get fully into it. What is happening. They tell it in the New York Times. Meta is developing a prediction markets app that they internally call “Arena.” The app is designed as an independent application from the rest of the Meta catalog and, at least for now, it does not work with real money but rather transactions are with a points system as if it were a video game. At the moment, the project is in the experimental phase, but the company has marked it as a high priority. Why is it important. Polymarket and Kalshi have already managed to get rid of the stigma of gambling addiction in betting houses and casinos, disguising their service with an aura of finance and trading. That Meta enters this could be the definitive step towards normalization, turning betting into another activity within online life. Let us remember that Meta has a daily user base of more than 3.5 billion between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Furthermore, this would give Meta a new type of very sensitive data: it is not only what people see and publish, it is also what they think is going to happen. By crossing all the data, they could outline future beliefs and expectations. It’s not the first. Meta already tried his luck in this prediction markets in 2020, when They launched an app called Forecast which allowed predictions to be made about real-world events, such as the COVID pandemic that was ravaging the world at that time. The app was launched only for the United States and Canada and also worked with a points system. Meta’s goal at that time was not to make money, but to make online conversation more rational. “We were interested in prediction markets because, when they work, they help participants be rational,” said Rebeca Kossnick, project leader. It didn’t last long and In October of the same year they closed it. Prediction markets. At that time, prediction markets were niche apps that almost no one knew about, but in recent years they have become almost a cultural phenomenon that has been announced at major events such as the Super Bowl or the Golden Globes. So far this year, Polymarket has been in the news for various reasons, from bets on Maduro’s capture with insider information its recent blockade in Spainwhere legislation requires them to have a gaming license. We have also learned that the vast majority of users are not making money, rather they are losing it, while professional traders take the lion’s share of the pie. Even so, prediction markets are in fashion and Meta wants to take advantage of the trend. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | I don’t bet, I invest: Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

Someone with a hairdryer “broke” Polymarket weather forecasts and pocketed $34,000

On April 5, a Polymarket user with the name “xX25Xx” bet $119 that the temperature in Paris would exceed 18ºC that day. Shortly afterwards the temperature recorded by the Metéo-France network sensor at Charles de Gaulle airport unexpectedly rose several degrees. That caused xX25Xx to cash out $21,398 for profits. Then something even more striking happened: no other sensor in Paris recorded that rise, and the user had already deleted his account. French police are investigating whether someone physically manipulated the sensor to win the bet. As? Easy. The “crime” weapon according to the forums. In Polymarket’s Discord channels, the “traders” themselves began to share theories of all kinds after hearing the news. AI-generated images were also shared on Twitter showing how someone with a hair dryer could have modified the sensor located near Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Multiple users They aimed for the “cordless hair dryer trick”, although it would have also been possible to achieve the same thing with a lighter. There’s the bet: from $119 to more than $21,000. Source:Polymarket The temperature did not rise. The analysis of the French company Bubblemaps revealed that no other meteorological sensor in Paris recorded the temperature rise that the Charles de Gaulle sensor recorded. The anomaly was therefore perfectly located, and the French national meteorological service, Metéo-France, announced that had filed a lawsuit due to manipulation of its data processing sensors. Both the sensor analysis and the data led to a clear conclusion and the French police are now investigating the matter. The Bubblemaps analysis revealed that this temperature peak experienced in a specific sensor was not experienced in the rest of the weather sensors in Paris. Source: Bubblemaps. It was not an isolated incidenteither. What happened on that occasion had actually happened other times. On April 6, the Charles de Gaulle sensor recorded a rise of four degrees Celsius in 12 minutes despite other sensors showing lower figures. A Polymarket user who had bet on higher than normal temperatures on that specific day won almost 30,000 euros. The pattern repeated itself on April 19. Three different Polymarket wallets won more than $280,000 in total by betting that the temperature in Paris would reach 19ºC on April 15. The real problem. The most striking thing about this event is not being able to use a hairdryer to win $20,000, but the fact that Polymarket has a single physical sensor in Paris as a data source for those temperatures. This means that anyone with physical access to said sensor – knowing it is the right one – can manipulate it without problems. There is no verification or redundancy in data sources, and here Polymarket has a notable underlying problem with bets that can be manipulated really easily. A more worrying pattern. The dryer case is a clear example of a new category of crime that these “prediction” markets have created. In recent months we have discovered how there have been investors in Polymarket who have managed to win large sums of money by betting on events in which there was a clear suspicion of insider information. It happened with the pardons that Biden granted before leaving the presidency, with the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and with the moment in which would announce ceasefire in Iran. In all of those moments, someone knew something before the market and took advantage of it. Polymarket as oracle of the financial world. The disturbing thing is that Polymarket is becoming a tool that is being used by financial and investment companies like the prestigious Goldman Sachs. She and several investors use Polymarket data for their own operations, but if the platform’s data is as manipulable as it seems, that information is contaminated from start to finish. Image | Sunny River generated by AI In Xataka | If you think you can beat a betting house in the long term, we have bad news: they have you in from the beginning.

Polymarket and company have sophisticated gambling addiction to the point of making it indistinguishable from “investing”

Prediction markets are no longer a niche of the Internet and datanerds to become the new obsession of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are receiving multi-billion dollar valuations by repackaging traditional bets as sophisticated financial instruments. The image that defines the moment occurred recently in Manhattan, according to Bloomberg: the patriarch of the New York Stock Exchange (70 years old, impeccable suit) closing a multimillion-dollar deal with the founder of Polymarket (27 years old, t-shirt and plastic bottle). That meeting sealed the fate of the sector: betting is no longer a game, it is finance. Why is it important. We are facing a radical cultural and regulatory change. By redefining bets as “event contracts”, these platforms try to circumvent gambling legislation (which in Spain would control Consumption) to sneak into the traditional financial system, with the support of giants such as the owners of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The panoramic. Kalshi is already worth $10 billion and Polymarket is looking for $12 billion. They are not beach bars, as we said, the owner of the NYSE has invested there. The hockey league (NHL) and Donald Trump’s media company are already signing deals. It is the traditional financial system embracing chance. It is, above all, legitimation. Semantic reengineering. Polymarket’s true success is not technological, it is linguistic. They have eliminated the stigma of the gambler by changing the dictionary: It’s not a bet. It’s an “investment.” It is not a betting house. It’s a “exchange of contracts”. You are not a gambler. you are a trader which analyzes “market sentiment.” An example of the absurdity of some cases: people betting by Elon Musk entering the race to be president of the United States, oblivious to the fact that Musk was born in South Africa and therefore cannot become president, since the US Constitution vetoes the presidency to foreigners. That is to say: all those bets are money thrown away from minute one. How it works. Instead of betting 50 euros on Trump winning, you buy a “share” of that result that is worth 1 dollar if you are right. This allows the same person who would win or lose money at roulette to now win or lose it in an app with stock market charts. Although the savings fly the same, the user feels smarter and less guilty: he believes that he is operating in something more similar to the IBEX, not in a casino. What’s coming. There is a civil war brewing. The old guard of the game (the owners of traditional casinos) see this as unfair competition. Jay Snowden, CEO of Penn Entertainment (a casino and sports betting company), has already warned: This is a direct threat to your industry. Prediction markets and games of chance overlap. In conclusion. Polymarket has managed to sophisticate gambling addiction for a generation that believes itself too smart to play games of chance. They have created the perfect casino for those who despise casinos, allowing them to risk savings under the illusion of doing financial analysis. In Xataka | Five years ago he worked from his bathroom on the brink of ruin. Today he runs a company valued at 8 billion Featured image | Hush Naidoo Jade PhotographyMockuuups Studio

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