No, I mean “Will you sell me that doll for $10 (or whatever)?”. As I said, I’ve had some success with this method.
I did this once. It’s still not easy, but most people seem to waste their ammo shooting the star itself. I got close one time and realized it needs a pretty tight circle around the star. The guns are automatics so you need a light finger so you only fire 2 or 3 BBs at a shot.
This works too. $10 used to be good enough for most of the junk they have, I bet it costs more these days. Sometimes they’ll do something like set up the milk bottles so you can knock them all over and impress your date.
Social engineering works well too – the people operating these games are generally bored senseless, lonely, underpaid, etc. Many are grateful for anyone showing an interest in them & will often provide some ‘assistance’ to players who do so. It should be noted that social engineering is a skill some people have, and many people just don’t. Presumably an adult knows which category they’re in, & if you’re in the ‘don’t’ group, tipping also works if your date just has to have that giant stuffed whatever.
I know, I just enjoy Simpsons clips. Regrettably, this was the best sidle-up-to-the-carnie bit I could find.
You could do that, but from what I’ve seen, the stuffed animals and other prizes at such carnivals aren’t really worth ten bucks, or whatever.
Not according to the video link above. They spent the whole day watching and there were games that no one ever won. He divided them up into three groups: pure chance, difficult but can be done if you know the trick and effectively impossible.
One of my friends used to work summers running a carnie game. The bosses said that they should always play up how easy the game was, but he was honest. If anyone asked how hard the game was, he’d always say “Pretty tough; we only get one or two winners a day”.
He always got more folks playing at his booth than at any of the other booths.
Full Disclosure- I can’t watch videos during work hours. So, I haven’t watched the video yet. I’ll watch it now.
They typically aren’t. The family of a friend of mine owned and ran a carnival, and their prize supplier sold them prizes on an economy of scale basis. For example, 100 teddy bears would cost $100, but 500 teddy bears might cost $400, and 1000 teddy bears might cost $700. So offering to outright buy a teddy bear for $10 would still be profitable for the carnival.
My friend has explained to our circle of friends some of the “tricks” behind the games. Generally speaking, most of them are all beatable, but as has been mentioned upthread, you have to know the trick. And some are just plain impossible (see the Mark Rober video that was posted).
As for the OP’s question, I’ve always had great success with Skee-Ball. If the carnival has some Skee-Ball alleys, try those. The game is fairly simple to play—roll a ball up an alley into a hole marked with a point value. Get a certain amount, or more, of points, and you win. It is darn near impossible to rig the game; it really is a game of skill. And I find it to be just plain fun, as well.
I’ve watched the video. It was fun and well grounded in science. I retract my previous post.
I once won at whack-a-mole. But my opponents were little kids, and I was in my 30s. This was at Circus Circus in Las Vegas. I figure kids visiting Lost Wages should learn their lessons early.
It’s probably not worth $10. Neither is spending the $10 trying to win the game. If $10 is the market price that day that’s what you have to pay if you want that prize.
I imagine a lot of times, you’ve got some little kid who desperately wants that cheap stuffed animal. So you waste money trying to win it to make them happy (or avoid a meltdown). And then a couple of hours or days later, they don’t care at all about it.
My children saw a toy at the fair last year, and wanted it. “No, it’s expensive and we don’t need another toy that doesn’t get played with”.
They did not stop talking about that toy all year. So we let them buy it with their own money this year at the fair. Why not, if it’s something they still wanted an entire year later?
I think…it may have actually made them happy.
Yeah, broke.
I once did one of those basketball things - weirdly it might have been at the Six Flags at Lake George? - and sunk every basket. My prize was…a basketball I then had to carry everywhere. But my kids were impressed!
There’s a game where you repeatedly squirt water into a plastic clown’s mouth or something, and you compete against others to get the most hits in a fixed amount of time. The progress is tracked by a board with horse avatars moving across it, as if in a horse race. It’s more winnable since you’re competing with your fellow rubes, not trying to beat a fixed game. I’ve won it before.
I think sometimes they let you trade up prizes. So if you want a BIG prize, rather than trying to win once at one of the nearly impossible games, you might be better off playing more of an easier to win game that offers smaller prizes for a single win and then try to win a couple more times so you can trade three small for one big or whatever.