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The badger game is an extortion scheme or confidence trick in which the victims are tricked into compromising positions in order to make them vulnerable to blackmail. Its name is derived from the practice of badger-baiting.
The trick was particularly effective in the 19th and earlier 20th century when social attitudes toward adultery were much harsher. A famous person known to have fallen victim of the scheme was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, whose adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds was used by her husband to extort money and information from him.
The badger game has been featured as a plot device in numerous books, movies and television shows.