Only recently did I learn that those arcade claw machines where the game is to precisely navigate a claw over some stuffed toys or a priceless watch such that when it descends it grabs it and pops it in a chute for you to take away as winnings are literally impossible, rather than just extraordinarily difficult, to win most of the time.
It turns out that a given claw has different strengths at different times. Full strength will grab and deliver the prize if you navigated it exactly right. But at all other times the claw isn’t even in theory strong enough to hold the prize, so you’ve no chance.
How strong the claw can be, and often the claw is strong, can typically be chosen or changed by the owner as this extract from a manual that Vox shared shows.
Some claws may have several parameters. For example on occasion it might be strong enough to pick up the prize, but then then deliberately weakens and drops the object of desire just before it get over the retrieval slot, making for those ultra-addictive seeming near misses.
So really claw machines are not so different to “pure” gambling machines like fruit machines. Except you have to be both lucky and somewhat skilled. And they’re less regulated in some jurisdictions.
Based on that manual extract it sounds like there might be a viable strategy involving secretly watching other people playing with the claw until it’s been a while since anyone won anything and swooping in in the hope that strong mode is about to trigger. If you can live with yourself and really want that big fluffy toy teddy anyway.
Also as the owner can set the parameters of the machine, it’d definitely be true that machines in some places might “pay out” a lot more than machines elsewhere.