Caribbean SG (The Centrepoint)

Caribbean is a Taiwanese claw machine shop on level five of The Centrepoint, and it is open around the clock.

The claw hangs at a tilt rather than dropping straight down, so the play is a swing and it takes a few goes to read. The machines are set to pay out, which is the point of the place: on the direct-catch cabinets ten or twenty tokens buys a guaranteed win, and anyone who has got the swing right will usually be carrying something before then. There are scratch-board machines alongside, and a gummy machine that hands you a figurine if you land four boxes of sweets.

Stock is topped up often and stays current — Pop Mart blind boxes, Pokémon, One Piece, Demon Slayer — and there are regular events and draws for bonus tokens, run through the shop’s Instagram. Someone works the floor here, which is not the norm for a claw shop: if a machine plays up there is a person to ask, and messages sent to the shop get answered. It is well liked for it.