Prediction Markets, Assassination Markets and Robert Walpole

Dateline: Woking, 25th June 2026.

The news that Mark Zuckerberg has directed a Meta team to build a prediction market app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi is interesting. Given the scale of platforms such as Facebook, it could attract substantial sums. While the app, known internally as “Arena”, is still in development and has been described as a top priority. It is certainly on trend. Prediction markets, platforms where users trade on the outcomes of real-world events such as elections, sports results or government policy decisions, have become incredibly popular, with billions of dollars in trading going (and growing attention from both investors and regulators).

Hence when I was invited by my good friends at OneID to give an after-dinner speech at an event they were hosting in Amsterdam to coincide with Money 20/20, I thought I’d talk about prediction markets as an interesting way to think about the need for identification, authentication and authorisation in online marketplaces.

Since the talk went down quite well, I thought I’d write it up here. I’m planning a subscribers-only Zoom event on the subject in July so… subscribe!