Claw machines are more like slot machines than games of skill.
In fact it’s more like gambling and effectively should be banned for under 18 year olds, it’s that bad!
The machines do some quick maths to work out how much money they’ve generated the owners, the manufactures and/or the people that look after the machine. If they’ve made enough profit they will allow people to win but only actually allow 1 win within a random selection, all is not lost as 1 in every 21 goes could be a winner but again this is randomised.
What really annoyed us is that most machines don’t make this very obvious, it appears to the untrained eye that it’s a game of skill when actually if you knew the odds up front you might be put off.
The video explains it in more details, either way poor show and we will never play them again.