Scaling up the claw-machine / children's casino concept into a giant Mr. Beast-style 'claw machine with huge prizes' (a PS5 as the smallest prize, even a golf cart or family bicycle) would create a spectacle worth lining up for, and spectacle itself can be manufactured by faking lines.
Ari pitches the children's claw-machine casino (Gacha Arcades). Sam adds the twist of a giant Mr. Beast-style claw machine with huge prizes like a PS5 or golf cart, arguing the wow factor and the psychology of lines and spectacle would make it work — citing a New York shop owner who faked a line for two months and then sustained it for two years. ✦ AI generated
Sean · My First Million · 2026-08-06 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 13:57
“What are the other differences uh between these, like what are they called around the (sic) gotcha arcades?”
don't you ever go shopping like in your downtown and you're like, how is this store open? ... how could you possibly pay the rent? So, we find one of those and we just replace the building with a giant claw machine. So, it's a claw game, but the claw is huge and the prizes are huger... it's like a claw machine, but the thing you get out is like, you know, a PS5 is the smallest prize you could get... And I just think that would be a spectacle.
verbatim transcript · starts at 13:57
13:37Dr. Evil? Uh, okay. Go on. [laughter] >> So, have you seen one of these? It's a claw machine arcade. >> Yes, >> they have one in my town and there's probably it's just like this small space. It probably has about 150 claw machines in it and it's token based so you're like it's not real money. >> Yeah. >> Super colorful. They're using like toys that kids go insane for like Neato
14:06Leoos. It's uh it's absolutely [laughter] insane. >> And there's no Is there no other games besides Claw Machine? And so it's like just pure claws. >> It's claws and it's those like totally rigged like try to cut the thread >> and get like a 50 lb leu. >> Looks like one of them has like the uh the punch machine. >> Yeah, exactly. Where just like you try
14:28to get the thing to fall off the edge. Um, I went to one and there was probably 15 people, 15 parents in there and they they they give you a shopping cart. So, they they're setting the tone like you're going [laughter] to you're going to be in here a while. >> Dude, that's genius actually to give you a box to fill up. [laughter] >> I've never found a box I didn't want to
14:50fill up if handed to me. [laughter] >> But, uh, did your kid win anything? So, I they do a good job of like I think the odds are better than like your typical grocery store claw machine because you do like you see other people with things in their carts um TBD how long they'd been there, how much they paid for that ultimately. But I mean, of course, like
15:10the toys they're giving away, the the machines that have the most like put out are probably giving away toys that cost 30 cents and it's basically you're averaging like $2 a game. Is this a go >> like how do you compare this to Chuck-E-Cheese? Right. So we So Chuck-E-Cheese similar idea. Go play games, get tickets to get a prize at the end. >> This is like the game is to get the
15:32prize like to get the prize is the game. Are there other differences uh between these like what what are they called? Gotacha arcades. >> Gotcha. Yeah. I because it's it is just like a casino. Like you go in there's only one thing to do like Chuck-E-Cheese like fun. You can go play in the ball pit. So, is your idea just, hey, check this out, or do you have a twist on this
15:53idea? Cuz I have a twist for you cuz >> Yeah, I got a good twist, too. >> Oh, go for it. >> All right, Sam, you want to go first? >> All right. So, uh, my partner Joe helped fund this idea and it didn't take off, but there's another guy in the space that it did take off. But basically what these guys did was they got a small
16:09warehouse and they put hundreds of claw machines in the warehouse and they turned it into an app where kids or whoever could download the app and watch the camera and they could control the claw machine and whatever they won it got shipped to them and uh it was called like winner winner and it didn't work out but there's another company called claw e if you it's the word claw and