Clawing Machines are All the Rage in HK

Claw machines are cheap entertainment in Hong Kong

Young people in Hong Kong are looking to ... claw machines for a bit of entertainment these days.

For HK$5 they try to control a metal claw to pick up a toy in a machine. If it doesn't work, well then try, try, again.

Some spend HK$30, HK$100 or HK$1,000 a week with varying levels of success.

It's very easy to spend little or a lot playing

"Hongkongers are facing a lot of stress now, and many entertainment venues [karaoke lounges and party rooms] have closed down," explained Kage Chan, a 33-year-old video director. "There may be a saying that five dollars can buy you happiness. Maybe that's why more people are interested in playing claw machines."

It turns out there's a whole industry around claw machines, starting with videos online teaching people how to be able to successfully grab toys from claw machines.

And then there is the business of making money from claw machines. They started getting popular when landlords were trying to fill shop spaces and rented them out cheaply to owners of claw machines. 

Chan won so many toys that he got the idea of putting them in claw machines to make money. From six machines in Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok, he has passively earned HK$30,000 in revenue.

Good prizes are an incentive to play

The competition among claw machines can be tough, and so the prizes need to be enticing enough for people to want to play them, they can't be too difficult to win a prize, and they need to be in popular areas with a lot of foot traffic.

Some landlords may choose not to rent their vacant spaces out to claw machines because they want to be able to charge higher rents, or have a shop rent the space out.

Only in Hong Kong do people who play the game, try to game the system to make money out of it!