New Planet Money Board Game Hides a Nobel-Winning Economic Theory

NPR's Planet Money has released a new board game, in partnership with the company Exploding Kittens, that hides real economic theory beneath a playful premise of trading creatures and cryptids.

The game, called Sell Me A Sasquatch, is designed for players ages 10 and up and is now available in stores after being documented in a Planet Money podcast series.

At its core, the game is loosely inspired by "The Market for Lemons," a 1970 paper by economist George Akerlof that later helped him win the Nobel Prize in economics. The paper explains how markets can break down when sellers know far more about a product's quality than buyers do — a concept economists call "asymmetric information."

Akerlof used the used-car market as his example: buyers can't easily tell good cars from "lemons," so they demand discounts. That discourages owners of good cars from selling, while owners of lemons are happy to sell at the lower price. Over time, lemons dominate the market, a process known as "adverse selection," which can cause a market to unravel entirely. The dynamic has since been observed in markets ranging from dating apps to health insurance.

In Sell Me A Sasquatch, players take turns as buyers evaluating deals involving creatures and cryptids, working with only partial information — mirroring Akerlof's used-car buyer. As players bluff and bargain, trust erodes and adverse selection sets in, leading to what the show describes as "joyful chaos."

Beyond the core mechanic, Planet Money asked listeners to suggest economics-themed creatures for the game and received more than 1,600 submissions. Among the favorites: the Laffer, a hyena named for the Laffer Curve, the theory that tax rates can get so high they discourage work and reduce government revenue; and Scabby, named after the inflatable rat unions use on picket lines, referencing an earlier Planet Money episode on labor strikes. Another card, the BullBear, nods to the bull and bear market terms used to describe rising and falling stocks.