Drawing on a game‐theoretical background, this article seeks to develop an analytical framework for explaining the problems an international lawmaker is faced with when crafting norms on the sharing of protective burdens in the asylum field, and to apply this framework to selected problems of burden‐sharing in EU asylum and migration policies. It focuses on the category of risk and casts burden‐sharing as a multi‐actor, multi‐level zero‐sum game, bringing together states and sub‐state entities as well as protection seekers. In doing so, a critical attitude to the inherent limitations of a game‐theoretical perspective is maintained.