Best Venues
Improve your chances at claw machines in Singapore, at popular chains like Timezone, iClaw and Fun Claw. They may look simple — move the claw, press a button and hope — but there is more skill in them than that. Here are our five best tips.
Good players study the machine, pick their target carefully, and use the claw to move prizes around rather than only trying to lift them.
1. Watch the machine before you play
Don’t feed credits into the first machine you see. Watch a few attempts first. Does the claw close firmly? Does it lift a prize and then loosen halfway up? Does it swing as it travels?
Claw machines are not all set the same way. Operators adjust how much power the claw uses, how often it pays out, and whether it grips hard every go or only on some. A common setting is a firm grip at the moment it closes, then a weaker one during the lift.
You cannot tell which go will be the strong one. You can tell when a claw is too weak, or the prizes too badly stacked, to be worth your money.
2. Pick the easiest prize, not your favourite
Which prize you go for is the biggest thing you control. Look for one sitting loosely on top of the pile with space around it. Nearer the chute is better still.
Avoid anything buried under other toys, wedged against the glass, or lying flat where the claw cannot get underneath. Shape matters too — arms, legs and ears give the claw something to catch.
3. Check your alignment from two angles
Being above the prize from the front does not mean you are above it from the side. Check both before you drop.
Use as much of the timer as you need. Make small movements at the end, then let the claw stop swinging. Look through the side of the cabinet as well as the front.
4. Stop aiming at the middle
The centre of a prize is not always the best target. Think about what the prongs will do as they close.
On a soft toy, a narrow part — the neck, an arm, the body between the shoulders — holds better than a big round head or belly. With boxed prizes and Japanese-style crane games, the aim is often not to lift the box at all, but to catch a corner with one prong and turn it over.
5. Use one go to set up the next
A failed attempt is wasted if the prize lands where it started. A good one either wins the prize or leaves it somewhere better.
Drag, nudge or turn a difficult prize towards the chute. Experienced players treat a crane game as a series of moves rather than one grab.
If two or three goes move nothing, walk away. No technique rescues a badly stacked prize or a machine set to grip weakly.
Seven good places to play
N2 Toys — an independent claw and collectables shop in the basement of Beauty World Centre, a minute from the station. The stock changes often, and the prizes lean towards anime and character figures rather than generic plush.
ArcadiaX at Kallang Wave Mall — claw machines are the main event, and it is the biggest of its operator’s four arcades. Staff walk the floor and clear a jammed machine quickly.
Timezone Orchard Xchange — the largest arcade in Singapore, with a long wall of claw machines to choose between.
Play United at Century Square — a large bank of claws sharing a unit with a Pokémon trading card shop, next to Tampines station.
Paco FunWorld at iMall — the prizes get swapped often, so the same rack is rarely there twice. It is in the basement on Marine Parade Central. Go down, not up.
Claw Surprize — a small independent shop on level two of Queensway Shopping Centre, and the rare one with staff who will come over and show you how a machine behaves. The plush is not its strong point, but it also runs Ichiban Kuji draws, where every ticket takes a prize.
Caribbean at The Centrepoint — a Taiwanese shop on level five, open 24 hours, a couple of minutes from Somerset station. The claws hang at a tilt and swing as they drop, which takes a few goes to read, and on the direct-catch machines 20 tokens buys a win outright.
Details change — prizes, machines and opening hours all move around. If something on one of our listings is out of date, there’s a form at the bottom of every one.
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— arcades.SG
Opening hours, prices and details change. Please check with the venue before travelling — and if something here is out of date, the report form on any listing takes about twenty seconds.
