Goodrich game, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Goodrich game n.

[? a contemporary confidence man; note Asbury, Sucker’s Progress, (1938): ‘According to [anti-gambling writer Jonathan] Green, the [Secret Band of] Brothers were a great organization of gamblers, robbers and counterfeiters, formed in 1798 at Hanging Rock, in the western part of Virginia, with one Goodrich at the head of the band’]

(US Und.) pretending to have been robbed to avoid paying one’s bill; thus Goodrich v.

1836		N.Y. Herald 11 Mar. 4/1: Mr. Park contended that Mr Fuller was only playing another ‘Goodrich game,’ by pretending to have been robbed to avoid paying his board bill for men and horses, amounting to between $70 and $80.
1838		N.Y. Gazette and General Advertiser 6 Aug. 2/4: [Mr. Gage is thought to have faked a robbery of himself; he,] in fact, appears to be completely Goodriched, and must be more authentically robbed and murdered if he would be a martyr of any standing.