$0.50 to play and the prizes cost $7, right? That means for a 50% profit the average win would be 1 in (2 x 7/.50) = 28.
Nice haul! Too bad thereâs no use for said pile of stuffed bears, unless youâre in need of a pretend bear army.
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There are a couple of these in the WinCo (discount grocery) down the street.
One has the latest crappy faddy plush toys. (Now: Dinosaurs. Last year: Duck Dynasty caricatures.) Another has knock-off electronic items. e.g., mp3 players in a box that looks like that of an iPad.
I saw something very interesting on the dinosaur unit: âWin Now, $20. Insert $20 and play until you win.â
Fuuuuhhhhhhhk.
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Oh, thereâs a way around itâŚ
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what about one of those posts you see here sometimes where somebody makes furniture out of toys. A loveseat made out of stuffed bears.
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I would think a legal case against this could be made, in that the fairness of an individual attempt is altered. Since you are already not assured of winning on an attempt with a full strength claw does the attempt with a less than full strength claw mean that you have actually no chance of winning? If so then the terms of your individual play have been misrepresented. The question - is there a way to tell if a claw of a specific machine is rigged?
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I always just assumed the claw was permanently underpowered.
What surprises me here is that wins are even possible. I had never seen, nor heard of, anyone winning something from one of these things.
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Itâs too bad, really. As a kid I really liked lining the claw up carefully to grab the toy I most wanted, hoping my depth perception was accurate and sometimes being wrong about how far back or forward I had to put it, which let me feel like I was developing a skill. Of course, it only took a couple quarters lost to a claw gently caressing my chosen toy rather than grabbing it to make it not fun anymore.
Oh well, nowadays when I want a toy and want to make it more personally valuable and endearing to me by putting effort into obtaining it, I make it by hand.
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These machines are designed to provide a very valuable lesson to the little ones: No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, youâre fucked. Just get used to it.
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About that. I found a use. Mostly, I took them to the office and kept them around for tossing at people or whatever.
Some of the bears were destroyed by a coworker having a bad day, and so the first batch of bears were reconstructed into mutants:
Later, after a particularly stressful day, I took a break to create a Mad Scientist/Brain Surgery scene from bits I had lying around, and a few more of the stuffed animals.
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Former coin-op developer here:
Almost all coin operated redemption machines are rigged. Itâs always been an unregulated kiddie casino, effectively. And even if some of the games are skill-based, they usually get phased out in favor of ones that the operators can dial in the payouts. Nothing pisses off an operator more than putting a game out and having it drained. That happens a few times, and itâs really hard to sell them another game.
Cyclone was one of the most famous rigged ones you could actually see. The light would spin around, and if it stopped on a space and it wasnât scheduled to pay out, it would just jump one light past. I know for a fact that many of the video redemption games have levels that are impossible to win unless the game determines beforehand that itâs time to pay out.
And that doesnât even count the breakdown. Most of the time itâs âpay a quarter to win a dime to buy a nickelâs worth of crap.â Not sure if itâs still the case, but I believe at Chuck E. Cheese you can just go buy 25 tickets for a quarter. If that doesnât show you that itâs a waste of time, I donât know what does.
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