Smartmatic Lawsuit Against Fox News Betting Odds: Over/Under $900 Million

Fox News and the Murdoch family are having a decidedly rough spring. The first blow to the company landed last month when Fox News settled a sizable lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion had filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March of 2021. The suit hinged on claims that Fox News hosts and guests had made persistent allegations that Dominion and their machines had rigged the 2020 elections. In the wake of the $787.5 million settlement Fox News agreed to with Dominion, Smartmatic's lawyer Erik Connolly is rightfully confident about his client's position. Appearing on CNN, Connolly said last week of Dominion's financial victory, "(it) set down a marker and it’s a marker that we think we should be exceeding." He also stated in his interview with CNN that Dominion's payout was a "good start," but that it was "not the right finishing point.” Sportsbooks have taken notice of Dominion's settlement and Connolly's statements and set an over/under for the money Smartmatic will receive in the form of a settlement or a judgment from a jury. If a case were to proceed it likely it would not start until 2025. 

Smartmatic Lawsuit Payout

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These lawsuits have rocked the Cable News giants and brought some of their top talent under the microscope. Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro were all singled-out in Smartmatic's lawsuit. According to the defamation lawsuit all three “engaged in a conspiracy to spread disinformation about Smartmatic.” In March of 2022, New York State Supreme Court Justice David Cohen allowed the case against Fox News to move forward writing that Fox News had “turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about plaintiffs, unprecedented in the history of American elections, so inherently improbable that it evinced a reckless disregard for the truth.” He did dismiss a few claims, including those filed against Pirro. But an appeals court has since revived the claims against Pirro. 

We will continue to monitor how sportsbooks are pricing a potential payout to Smartmatic in the coming months.