shell game

American  

noun

1. a sleight-of-hand swindling game resembling thimblerig but employing walnut shells or the like instead of thimblelike cups.

2. any deceit, swindle, fraud, or the like.

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shell game British  

noun

1. the US name for thimblerig

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Etymology

Origin of shell game

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90

Example Sentences

Every time I needed a single ingredient, I had to shuffle through a stack of identical, unlabeled bins, opening and closing them like a particularly tedious shell game.

From Salon • Mar. 19, 2026

“It’s a shell game and there’s no way to enforce this stuff because it’s all an algorithm in a black box — how we’re paid and whether or not we get benefits,” Moore said.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 14, 2024

"Your assets can be moved around in whatever shell game Binance prefers. And in the end, whenever everything crashes you're last in line," Stark told Reuters.

From Reuters • Jun. 6, 2023

On the way down, he was proof, to those who wanted it, that crypto businesses were not much more than a shell game.

From New York Times • Dec. 28, 2022

It was a shell game with no actual pea under the rapidly moving cups.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray