Abstract
Gambling as a youth is an established risk-factor for experiencing lifetime gambling harm. 1 Although much youth gambling research focuses on illegal engagement with age-restricted products, 2 the recent innovation of video game “loot boxes” has helped direct attention toward gambling-like activities, which have no minimum legal age of use. 3 For example, the 2023 Gambling Commission Great British youth gambling survey suggested that, in the past year, 21% of youth had paid money to open loot boxes, compared to only for example 3% that had played on age-restricted slot machines. 4 This means that loot boxes could be a significant contributor to population-based youth harms, even if age-restricted gambling formats have higher rates of harm for each youth engaging in the activity. The same youth gambling survey suggested that 19.6% of youth had in the past year paid to play “claw crane” (a.k.a “crane grabber”) machines, which are arcade machines where a claw crane is manipulated to try to win some prize, often a soft/plush toy of particular appeal to youth. 5 The present work intends to raise awareness of the potential global public health risks of claw cranes, by highlighting their high rates of global engagement, their potential contribution to harm, and their continuing technological evolution.
HIGH RATES OF GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT
Claw cranes’ legality and appeal toward youth can result in high rates of engagement, with the 19.6% Great British rate in 2023 being preceded by a rate of 17.3% the previous year. 6 A Canadian study with youth and young adults (aged 16–24) reported a past-year engagement rate of 74.1%, but without detailing how this rate varied among youth and emerging adults. 7 Rates of engagement can be even higher when asking adults about their recollected use of claw cranes at any point as a child, with rates of 90.8%–93.8% reported in UK samples, 8 89.2% reported in an Australian sample, 9 and 97.0% reported in a USA sample. 10 These high reported rates of both past-year and childhood engagement suggest that similar research in other jurisdictions is needed.
POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTION TO HARM
High rates of engagement can only produce potential public health risks if the behavior is a potential contributor to harm. A Malaysian case report describes a 40-year-old patient who began engaging with claw cranes as a way of dealing with feeling of loneliness, 11 which led to stealing and debt, two established gambling-related harms. 12 Although these are severe and therefore unlikely harms, 13 cross-sectional evidence suggests more broadly that higher rates of recollected engagement with claw cranes as a youth predict gambling-related harm as an adult. 14 The potential causal logic underlying this association is that claw cranes might be similar enough to gambling, so that early sustained exposure to claw cranes might help lead to later adult gambling engagement and harm, much like with age-restricted gambling. 15 However, the observed correlations might have other causes such as systematic memory biases, which only one study has attempted to address so far. 16
CONTINUING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
Age-restricted gambling products can be made more harmful via technological innovation, for example when mechanical gambling machines were replaced by faster and more immersive electronic gambling machines. 17 Technological innovation could similarly be used to increase claw cranes’ risk of harm. For example, it has been noted that claw cranes are programmed to drop potential prizes tantalizingly close to the collection tray, 18 thereby mimicking the near-miss effect which has also been technologically-enhanced in electronic gambling machines. 19 Other potential claw crane innovations could for example attempt to enhance the perceived skill in manipulating the claw crane, which could be relevant to the illusion of control in gambling. 20
Online claw cranes also now exist, and the only above-cited study which asked about them found that online use appeared at a similar rate to conventional claw crane use. 21 Furthermore, both conventional and online claw cranes can be filled with items of higher value or of more appeal to adults, thereby potentially widening their userbase. This broader appeal is supported by anecdotal reports of widespread claw crane use across south east Asia, 22 including in Thailand where the government temporarily attempted to ban claw cranes for being a form of gambling. 23 This again points to the need for more international research on claw cranes.
CONCLUSION
Claw cranes present a potential global public health risk, due to their widespread use, their potential contribution to harm, and their continuing technological innovation. The present work has brought together previous international work on these topics, and intends to serve as a call for further research.