The idiom, skin in the game, can basically be defined as a particular person or institution having some sort of personal or meaningful complicity in the decisions so being made by that person or institution so enacted, in which the consequences thereof, impacts them as well as the parties that they are intended to impact. That is to say, when advice is given to anybody, of whom the consequence of the person giving such advice has no material impact upon them, then, in fairness, that person does not have skin in the game, because they are not risking anything for providing that advice. On the other hand, when someone requests that his constituents, take up their arms against some sort of oppressive enemy, and that person or institution does their part in taking up their own arms, then, they for a certainty, have skin in the game, for they are involved in it.
There are always going to be those instances, of which in the advice so given, that the person providing that advice, may indeed have the best of intentions, but they are not in a position in which they really could have skin in the game, such as, for example, when a person provides an entrepreneur with business advice, of which that person giving that advice, does not own a business or is even a manager of such. That does not mean the advice has no relevancy or has no value, but, it does indicate that the person receiving that advice should take into account, that the advice so given is essentially by a person that is not risking anything.
The main issue with those people and institutions that do not have skin in the game, is the fact, that the further removed that a person or institution are from having skin in the game, the more that the decisions and advice that they make, while having consequences for those receiving such, good or bad, does not noticeably affect that person or institution that has made those decisions or given that advice. The problem thereby becomes that when those that are making or implementing the rules, regulations, and laws for others but have no skin in the game, not even on a tangential level, the less inclined they are to take to heart, the real consequences of those rules, regulations, and laws upon those that these are applicable to. This is why, for instance, when those that judge or enforce the law, are placed into a situation where the worm has turned, that they become for the first time, truly knowledgeable about how that law is actually applied in the real world, and this often becomes an insightful revelation for them.
Those that have never walked a mile in another person's shoes, do not truly know that person, and do not have skin in the game with that person, of which, because they lack that experience, it therefore means that they are less capable of having harmonic empathy for that person's situation. So that, those that have never had to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or the security of their employment, or the fair safety of their being from the long arm of the law, do not have a true appreciation for all those that have experienced or have been threatened with those very things. All this signifies that those that do not have skin in the game, are going to find it problematic to do the right thing, even if they actually desire to do the right thing, because having personally risked nothing, they therefore will not suffer the consequences of what so occurs, and hence will not be able to properly value the ultimate repercussions of what they have advised, implemented, or done.