Claw machine

A claw machine is a type of arcade game. Modern claw machines are upright cabinets with glass boxes that are lit from the inside and have a joystick-controlled claw at the top, which is coin-operated and positioned over a pile of prizes, dropped into the pile, and picked up to unload the prize or lack thereof into a chute.^[1][2] They typically contain stuffed toys or other cheap prizes, and sometimes contain more expensive items like electronic devices and fashion accessories.^[3][4] Claw machines are also known as skill cranes, claw cranes, crane games, teddy pickers, and are known as UFO catchers in Japan due to the claws' resemblance to UFOs.^[5][6][7]

The earliest claw machines are believed to have been created in the late 19th century and inspired by the machines used to build the Panama Canal, while the first patented claw machine, the Erie Digger, was inspired by the creation of the Erie Canal and invented in 1926. It and its successor, the Miami Digger, were popular throughout the United States during the 1930s, specifically during the Great Depression, as carnival attractions and as furniture in public places. By the 1980s, claw machines were ubiquitous in both the United States and Japan; the success of Sega's UFO Catcher machines in the 1980s and 1990s inspired a claw machine craze in the latter country. Claw machines have made appearances in numerous video games, music videos, films, and television shows since at least the 1990s.

In the late 2010s, claw machines became immensely popular in South Korea and Taiwan as cheap entertainment due to their slowing economies at the time, with the number of claw machine arcades in both places rising into the thousands. Also in the 2010s, claw machines that could be remotely controlled via mobile applications or websites began turning up online.

Claw machines are often rigged to modify the claw's strength on each turn, and are consequently considered gambling devices in some jurisdictions.