Las Vegas is one of the few places where choosing a hotel casino is more difficult than picking a place to eat. With dozens of themed resorts and casinos packed onto the Strip — each with its own games, shows, restaurants, and vibes — it’s details that make each stand out. At the Luxor Hotel & Casino, one of the most iconic hotels on the Strip, the largest recovered piece of the Titanic rests in the atrium. Others target specific demographics, like the top-rated Wynn Hotel, which treats vegan tourists like total VIPs. At The D Casino & Hotel, a unique feature caters to the gamblers themselves, with a nostalgic, arcade-style twist: a Vegas take on the claw machine game. The D has two of these claws, called the Go Go Claw slot machines.
As you might have gleaned from its name, the Go Go Claw slot machines aren’t traditional claw machines. First of all, players wager a bet, which initiates the claw function. Instead of maneuvering the claw to pick up a toy or candy, you use it to pick up one of a collection of plastic balls, which represent prizes that are predetermined by the machine. But it’s the fact that the game leans on its nostalgic element that makes it a draw over other, regular slot machines. “It’s fun. It reminds you of what we used to play as kids at the pizzeria,” said one player, Dottie Dudley, in the Las Vegas Sun. With all that said, the Go Go Claw machine isn’t exactly the skill-based game it appears to be at first glance.
Is the Go Go Claw slot machine really skill-based?
After you place your bet on the Go Go Claw machine’s screen, it determines a prize value randomly — already an indicator that the game is more chance than choice. You then get to move the claw to try to land it precisely so that it picks up a ball. This part of the game is fun, but it’s not really about the player’s skill at calculating the claw’s orientation. One of the notices given on the game’s screen reads: “The physical components of the game are used to exhibit the game result randomly determined by software.” In other words, the claw element is mostly for show, and the outcome will be the same whether you manage to grab a prize ball or not. In fact, another rule of the game states that you could still win a prize even if you don’t grab a ball (if the program selected you as a winner before, that is)…