"mug's game" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mugs' games",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "mugs' games"
      },
      "expansion": "mug's game (plural mugs' games)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 109",
          "text": "‘It's a mug's game,’ said Crabbe.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988 May 20, Strobe Talbot, “Inside Moves”, in Time",
          "text": "The sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes the quest for defenses a mug's game.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, David Stevenson, FT Guide to Exchange Traded Funds and Index Funds",
          "text": "Although they aspired, like all natural-born gamblers, to taking a flutter and beating that system (they all loved the idea of tips, of course), they were sufficiently cynical to know it's a mug's game and that it was largely bound to fail.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking."
      ],
      "id": "en-mug's_game-en-noun-QjB4FM5e",
      "links": [
        [
          "foolish",
          "foolish"
        ],
        [
          "profitless",
          "profitless"
        ],
        [
          "hopeless",
          "hopeless"
        ],
        [
          "undertaking",
          "undertaking"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking.",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "gekkenwerk"
        },
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking.",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "zinloze bezigheid"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-mug's game.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4b/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mug's game"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mugs' games",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "mugs' games"
      },
      "expansion": "mug's game (plural mugs' games)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 109",
          "text": "‘It's a mug's game,’ said Crabbe.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988 May 20, Strobe Talbot, “Inside Moves”, in Time",
          "text": "The sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes the quest for defenses a mug's game.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, David Stevenson, FT Guide to Exchange Traded Funds and Index Funds",
          "text": "Although they aspired, like all natural-born gamblers, to taking a flutter and beating that system (they all loved the idea of tips, of course), they were sufficiently cynical to know it's a mug's game and that it was largely bound to fail.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "foolish",
          "foolish"
        ],
        [
          "profitless",
          "profitless"
        ],
        [
          "hopeless",
          "hopeless"
        ],
        [
          "undertaking",
          "undertaking"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-mug's game.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4b/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/En-au-mug%27s_game.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking.",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "gekkenwerk"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "A foolish, profitless, or hopeless undertaking.",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "zinloze bezigheid"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mug's game"
}