smart money

noun

1. collective, uncountable Experienced, well-informed investors, gamblers, etc. considered as a group. First, we will try to understand the market using a simplified model focusing on the psychological perspective of two major groups: the smart money players who are assumed to be driving the market, and the general, uninformed public.
2. uncountable The money invested or bet by such people; by extension, the opinions of such people. The smart money is on a half percent cut in the basic bank lending rates before the end of the week.
3. uncountable Money paid by a person to buy himself off from some unpleasant engagement or some painful situation.
4. historical, uncountable Money allowed to soldiers or sailors, in the English service, for wounds and injuries received; also, a sum paid by a recruit, previous to being sworn in, to procure his release from service. The reader may remember that Mr Allworthy gave Tom Jones a little horse, as a kind of smart-money for the punishment which he imagined he had suffered innocently.
5. uncountable Vindictive or exemplary damages; damages beyond a full compensation for the actual injury done. September 30 1893, Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry, "Empolyers' Liability Bill", quoted in The Parliamentary Debates it made was paid by employers to workmen employers liable for injuries resulting as smart money