Easy Money

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Examine personal risk calculation, trust, and free-riding behavior under conditions of incomplete information and restricted communication.

Use it when: Use during leadership or team decision-making sessions when exploring collective action problems, risk tolerance, or trust in distributed teams.

Skip it when: Skip when participants cannot comfortably handle real cash stakes, when organizational policy forbids cash-based games, or when financial stress is present.

Group arrangement: 11 active investors, 1 participant auditor, and remaining participants as advisors and observers

Timing: Source specifies 12 to 15 minutes of play plus 10 to 30 minutes of debrief. UWT specifies 25 minutes total.

Materials and tools

• 11 blank mailing envelopes
• 11 ten-dollar bills ($110 total cash payout provided by facilitator)
• Cash brought by participants (bills and coins)
• 1 calculator
• 1 timer
• Pens or markers for labeling envelopes
• Whiteboard or flip chart with marker

Before participants arrive

1. Verify you have exactly eleven $10 bills ($110 total) ready for payouts.
2. Ensure participants carry cash or small bills, or designate standard tokens or checks as permitted by the rules.
3. Designate a workstation for the auditor equipped with a calculator and a marker.

Say this to open

We have eleven envelopes for eleven investors. Those holding an envelope will make an independent financial decision. You may place any amount of cash from zero dollars upward into your envelope. Investors cannot speak to each other. Non-investors may advise, but cannot shuttle messages. If the eleven envelopes hold at least $79.79 total, every investor receives $10 regardless of what they put in. If the total is short, the house keeps the entire sum.

How to run it

1. Assign roles and explain rules 4 minutes

   Distribute 11 envelopes to 11 participants, designating them investors. Assign one participant as auditor. Remaining participants become advisors. State the rules: investors cannot talk to each other. Advisors may talk to investors but cannot transmit messages between them. Explain the payoff: if the combined total reaches $79.79, each investor gets $10. If the total is less than $79.79, the house keeps all money and pays nothing. Answer questions strictly by repeating these rules.

2. Make secret investments 3 minutes

   Start a 3-minute timer. Investors decide privately how much cash to place inside their envelope. Advisors may offer counsel. Investors insert their money, seal the envelope, and write their initials on the front. At the 3-minute signal, collect all 11 sealed envelopes immediately.

3. Audit envelopes and collect predictions 5 minutes

   Hand the envelopes to the auditor. The auditor counts the money in each envelope, writes the sum on each envelope face, and calculates the running total using the calculator. While the auditor works, ask remaining participants to predict the total sum. Record 3 to 4 predictions and their rationale on the board.

4. Announce outcome and report contributions 3 minutes

   Ask the auditor to announce the grand total. If the total is $79.79 or more, pay each investor $10 and keep the envelopes. If below $79.79, retain the envelopes and announce that nobody receives $10 because the target was missed. Have the auditor read the anonymous amounts. For example: Envelope 1 has $10.00, Envelope 2 has $0.00, Envelope 3 has $7.50. Per original rules, if the goal was missed, return funds only at the end of debrief.

5. Debrief the dynamics 10 minutes

   Facilitate a structured debrief focusing on risk, communication limits, and trust. Solicit 3 to 5 contributions across the questions. At the conclusion of debrief, return all unearned retained money to its original contributors.

Debrief questions

• For investors who contributed more than the average $7.26 share: what assumption guided your choice?
• For investors who contributed zero or very little: what risk calculation led to that decision?
• How did the ban on direct communication between investors shape the group outcome?

Finished output: Completed simulation record showing individual anonymous contribution amounts, the total pool, and documented participant insights on collective trust.

Remote

Run online using numeric point allocations instead of cash. Give 11 investors a private direct message or form where each allocates an unconstrained integer value from 0 points upward. If the collective pool reaches 80 points, each investor gains 10 bonus points; if below 80, all committed points are lost. The auditor tallies the allocations on a shared screen.

Hybrid

All participants join an online numeric form or use play tokens managed by a designated remote auditor. Mixing physical cash and digital entries creates uneven real-world risk, so run hybrid groups strictly on point tokens or simulated funds with equal rules for all.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may opt out of the investor role and serve as advisors or observers without handling money.
• Investors may submit an empty envelope ($0 contribution) without disclosing that choice to others.
• Any participant may decline to answer debrief questions or pass their turn.

If the session gets stuck

Participants do not carry physical cash or exact change.

Offer to accept signed paper checks or written IOU slips specifying cash values, or provide uniform sets of counter tokens valued at $1 each.

Investors attempt to whisper or signal contribution targets to each other.

Seat investors away from each other and remind advisors that relaying specific numbers between investors breaches the non-communication rule.

Terms used here

• Public goods dilemma: A scenario where people must decide how much to contribute to a shared pool that pays out collectively regardless of individual input.
• Free-rider: A participant who benefits from a shared payoff without contributing their fair share of the required cost.