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Reader question: Please explain “gaming the system” in this headline: Obama criticizes offshore tax havens for ‘gaming the system’. My comments: Here, tax havens (regions that allow foreign corporations to avoid taxation) are rapped by US President Barack Obama for colluding with international companies to allow the latter to evade taxes. Gaming the system is literally playing the system, game as in “play a game of basketball”. Game, you see, is mostly used as a noun. When it is used as a verb, it sounds unusual and, as William Safire points out (see example articles below) in his language column, sinister. It gives a “rakish connotation”. In other words, to play is to amuse and have fun, and that is all right but to “game” sounds the same as “to gamble” and “to swindle”. In other words, to “game” is to cheat, i.e. cheat the game itself. All games, be they in the playground or on the stock market, have systems, or rules and regulations that ensure the integrity of the games being played, making sure things proceed smoothly and everyone involved is treated equally and fairly. Needless to say, the system, that is all the rules and regulations that govern the system, is imperfect, such being the human state we’re all in. Put plainly, the system has loopholes and if you try to take advantage of the said loopholes for personal gain instead of finding ways to close the holes, then you’re gaming the system. | 
