The Role of Prediction Markets in Forecasting

Robin Hanson summarizes the literature, in case you weren't convinced:
Decades of research on financial markets have shown that it is hard to find biases in market estimates. The few direct comparisons made so far have found markets to be at least as accurate as other institutions. Orange Juice futures improve on National Weather Service forecasts (Roll, 1984), horse race markets beat horse race experts (Figlewski, 1979), Oscar markets beat columnist forecasts (Pennock, Giles, & Nielsen, 2001), gas demand markets beat gas demand experts (Spencer, 2004), stock markets beat the official NASA panel at fingering the guilty company in the Challenger accident (Maloney & Mulherin, 2003), markets on economic statistics beat surveys of professional forecasters (Grkaynak & Wolfers, 2006), election markets beat national opinion polls (Berg, Nelson, & Rietz, 2001), and corporate sales markets beat official corporate forecasts (Chen & Plott, 1998)

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