I have gotten many e-mails from business people asking me whether they should attend the San Francisco vendor mini-conference on prediction markets in January 2009. My advice: Don&#8217-t go. Don&#8217-t pay a single cent for it.

1. It is basically a vendor fair. Four software vendors are lined up. (I am told they have to fork over about $800 to take the stage.) They will over-sell the prediction markets and feed you with promotional material.
2. The conference organizer is commissioned by some of those vendors. He is biased from the toes to the hair.
3. Only an idiot would pay $300+ to listen to promotional material. Don&#8217-t. Never pay to listen to salesmen.
4. One scholar will feed you with highly theoretical material, which you can get for free on Midas Oracle &#8212-99% of which you don&#8217-t need anyway.
5. One scholar has never published anything on prediction markets &#8212-as far as I know (I could be wrong).
6. One Robin Hanson fanboy and prediction market enthusiast will pump up the enterprise prediction markets. Never trust the overly enthusiast people. Never trust people who belong to one school of thought. Do trust, instead, the independent minds who use the scientific approach.
7. Do listen, instead, to the thinkers who have nothing to sell you.

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