I just spent twenty one dollars today on my boy's attempts at winning an iPad at a claw game like this. It actually had a key-shaped thing that lined up with a hole, and pushed.
I can win it mom! I can win it! Just take a video and I'll know the time I need to make it work! If only you were more SUPPORTIVE of me mom! I just almost WON!
Frustrated, I can't get it through his head that these games are rigged.
My son spends lots of money on these carnival games. Both his father's side of the family and mine have gamblers. My mother blows on the dice and plays craps on our game at home, excited and saying 'I feel ALIVE!' and 'I hope Lady Luck is good to me!'
To me, this type of behavior is counterproductive. The odds of the games one can estimate, and when the odds are poor, it's best not to try or waste the money. It's science, not 'luck'.
For example, on the Fourth of July, we ate our lunch at a table next to a basketball carnival game.
I showed him how the rim was an ellipse, not a circle, and that was on purpose to make it super hard to win.
He saw it.
Yet in the next breath, he asked for five dollars so he could play.
I was astonished.
Today I confronted him, after the twenty one dollars, with no win tickets to cash in any prizes like from playing Whack A Mole and other arcade games. The claw type ones only take your money.
They give nothing back.
I asked, 'Why do they make these games?'
He said, 'For people to have fun.'
His head was hung low, and he was clearly sad that he had come so close to winning and not actually WON. I pointed it out, that his affect (outward body language of inside emotion) was not one of someone who has had fun...
'Are you sure that's why?' I pressed further, 'Isn't it for them to make money?'
I pointed to the pictures of winners on the machine. There were FIVE, three iPads and two headphones.
I asked him how much an iPad costs in the first place? We checked. About $499. The twenty one dollars was five percent towards that.
He said, 'Well that's why I should try for it--I can get it for less.'
He also said, about the rigged basketball game, 'I wanted to TEST it for myself that it's rigged.'
The Time Of My Life (Dirty Bit remix) -- The Black Eyed Peas
That's why you can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
I did set a healthy boundary. No more of my money on games that are not like Whack A Mole where you get tickets. Skee Ball, and the like, are 'fun'. Trying to gamble at a 'game of skill' for a prize where it's rigged, is not 'fun'.
He can use his own money.
And learn what everybody else knows about those games as his Consciousness permits. <3
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Reiki Doc
