Do you play the claw machines at arcades and restaurants?

@loki1982 (780)
Dallas, Texas
September 9, 2015 8:20am CST
I came across an article that talked about how the manual to these machines specifies to adjust the strength of the claw to purposely drop items x amount of times so that people only win a certain amount of times. I've always figured this was probably true but now after seeing it, its very disappointing to know that skill has very little to do with winning on a claw machine. And they are built to remember and change the strength based on the previous wins. For example, lets say the game has been set to let a person win 1 out of 10 times. The first person plays and wins. The game will try to not let you anyone win for 9 more tries before giving up another win. If you get lucky and win again on number 5, the machine knows that it is short 5 rounds, so it will adjust to make you less likely to win again for 15 rounds to balance out the win ratio. Makes playing these games far less fun when you know they are rigged this way.
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1 response
@gudheart (12659)
9 Sep 15
I used to when I was younger yes, no that much anymore. I still love the money machines though, they are addictive!
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@loki1982 (780)
• Dallas, Texas
9 Sep 15
My kids always want me to try to win them something from the claw machine. So I still play them from time to time.
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@gudheart (12659)
9 Sep 15
@loki1982 I think if I went to fair grounds more often I would probably end up giving them a go more.