Sega sued for ‘rigged’ arcade machine

They're certainly scummy but, I mean, this isn't any different from the claw crane machines that are usually exempted from gambling laws under certain conditions (win chance, prize value, where they're located, etc); machines that nobody expects to be fair.

No, that's now how it works, according to the article, which is going by what the manual shipped with the cabinet states.

The machine will not allow a win no matter what until a set number of losses has happened. The default shipped setting is to not allow a win until there has been 700 losses. Some other vendor in Arizona is noted as having been sued because he ran his games at a required 2200 losses to allow a payout.

Actual gambling devices are much more regulated and have much better payout odds most likely (depending on what's winnable), but more importantly are actually random.

These games are not chance, and they aren't skill, they're a scam that market themselves as a game of skill.

I think some people (especially kids) do assume they're fair, and nobody around is inclined to disabuse them of that notion.

> machines that nobody expects to be fair

I for sure did. In fact, on my long list of "someday/maybe" projects, there was this one entry sitting for some 15 years now: build a little machine for the claw crane game, that would time a button press perfectly. I just saw the video where Mark Rober does this to another arcade game[0], so I won't bother anymore - I can already guess the outcome.

I also don't know anyone else in my circles who thought the claw crane was a game of chance. It looks like a game of skill, it behaves like one. And sure, maybe the crane wasn't oiled in a while, but nobody tells you that in the end, it also rolls a dice to determine whether to allow you to win.

It's a big deal to me, and I think it should be a big deal for everyone. It's yet another violation of trust in society. Yet another seemingly legit business out there to scam you.

When I grew up, we saw arcades as fun places to be with friends, and if we lost on what looked like a game of chance, we assumed we just sucked and need to keep playing to get better (or rather, until all our sources of coin money go dry). We didn't know the cake was a lie.

When my kid grows older and I take her to an arcade, I'm going to tell her up front - you can have fun here, but these games and these people are out there to scam you. Your joy is your own - you have to take it in spite of, not thanks to, this place. I don't want to be telling her such things. I would like for her to live in a world where she can default to trusting businesses and taking their offers as good-spirited attempts of mutually beneficial transactions - not to be constantly on the guard from technically legitimate businesses trying to scam her.

So, I'd very much like to see every single one of these arcades to be investigated, dragged to court for selling illegal gambling services to children, and the entire industry to be beaten up with criminal code, until every such game is either banned or has its exact rules posted on it, in a clear and unambiguous form. Fuck caveat emptor - the measure of civilization is in the things you don't have to actively worry about.

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[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27841623

I thought this was known, too.

I imagine the losses are going to be far worse for those plush toy claw-grabbing machines if this case succeeds. Especially as they attach cash envelopes to them where I live. And those block stacking machines, too.

It’s clearly gambling for kids, I suspect when the first company got away with rigging the game everyone else just assumed it must be legal and ran with it. Now they’re literally everywhere.

The publicity alone will likely cause an EU ban. They don’t like to be seen as trailing on consumer protection law.