Yuen: Could the new wave of claw machines get kids hooked on gambling?

In a crowded casino made for kids, stocked with rows upon rows of neon, chiming claw machines, I saw my 12-year-old son’s life flash before my eyes.

He had already drained $20 into a single machine when his latest attempt looked promising. The metal claw plunged into a sea of stuffed animals, scooped one up, and at the last second, dropped the plush toy once again.

The outcome — close, but no stuffy — wasn’t surprising. But my kid’s reaction was.

“I’m going again! I’m going again!” he insisted with a crazed look, fishing through his tray of tokens for another round. “I’m gonna win it!”

Arcades featuring Japanese-style claw machines have descended on Minnesota. They’re the modern, more thrilling version of the sad-looking claw machine in the grocery store that no intelligent person would ever play. The latest generation of this game, however, feels more enticing, cheerful and blatantly kid-friendly.

We decided to try our hand at DUCK!, a popular claw-machine business nestled in an Eagan strip mall. My brother was in town, and Uncle Timmy loaded up both of my kids with tokens for days. Judging from the families, teens and grown men around us carrying shopping baskets teeming with prizes, the odds weren’t completely rigged against the humans.

Still, I worried — what if my kid’s fixation with the claw marked the beginning of a gambling problem that would lead to a lifetime of regret, loneliness and financial ruin? As mothers tend to do.

Was there something innately addictive about these machines? And was my concern warranted?

“It can definitely be habit-forming, and it definitely draws you back in,” said Dr. Joseph Lee, president and CEO of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Center City, Minn., and an expert on addiction.

The claw-machine craze is not worth catastrophizing over, but Lee said my parental instinct to take note of my kid’s behavior that day is not without cause. The games have common mechanisms that can get players hooked. In Asia there have been isolated reports of players spending thousands of dollars on the games and abandoning their daily responsibilities. Gambling addiction is an underappreciated problem in our country, Lee said, particularly sports betting among young men.

And much like slot machines, claw machines are noisy and bright and dole out what’s known as “intermittent rewards.” In other words, they reinforce behavior — the decision to play again — because of the unpredictability of the payoff. (A friend offered this pro tip: Wait for the roving staff to refill and “fluff” the machine; they are setting it up to be won.)

And yes, my kid did eventually win a prize, which fueled his desire to try it again.

“That pattern of behavior is very hard to extinguish,” Lee said. “When you get a win, people want to pursue the thrill of that win. The short dopamine release reinforces that behavior. Can it definitely cause you to want to repeat that behavior in a way that’s unhealthy? Absolutely.”

These establishments don’t fall into the category of gambling venues because, rightly or wrongly, claw machines and other amusement devices are considered “games of skill” rather than games of chance. The prizes are also less valuable.

Some individuals can walk into a casino and are perfectly content sitting out on the excitement. Ever the miser, I am one of those people. (Naturally, I am a lot of fun at parties.) My dad, on the other hand, played the lottery every week when I was growing up. Once he picked five of the six numbers correctly and always reminded his children how differently our lives would have shaken out if he had won the whole shebang. No matter that he had a master’s degree in mathematics and understood probability: His dream of winning big overrode the statistical fact that he was more likely to be struck by lightning.

What makes some individuals hard-wired to chase one bad bet or another? Some people are at higher risk for compulsive behavior, Lee said. A person with a family history of nicotine use or gambling addiction might be more vulnerable.

But the claw machine represents something more.

Lee (who’s also a parent) and I talked about a culture that primes young people for instant rewards. The constant looping of YouTube shorts in my house, as much as I try to ban the app, is one data point indicating the dwindling attention spans of youth. Kids are reading for pleasure much less than before. Even some teachers have stopped assigning whole books.

Social media has fed into this constant yearning for dopamine, even though the necessary tasks of daily living — waiting in line, washing the dishes — are rarely that interesting.

“Parents in this era need to be more vigilant about all the short-term, intermittent rewards that are surrounding our kids,” Lee said. “What does this do to shape what they expect about life?”

As exciting as it was, my son hasn’t asked to go back to the arcade. He’s been more obsessed with fishing. He could stand on the shoreline for hours on end, day after day, sometimes without reeling in a single catch. Fishing for a pike at a city lake might seem similar to fishing for a plush toy in an arcade, but it gets him out in nature, helps him regulate his emotions and brings him closer to his friends.

But most of all, fishing requires his sustained effort and attention. And those two components often lead to the sweetest rewards in life.