FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Texas Is America's Claw Machine Capital, First Count of U.S. "Clawcades" Finds

Claw Machine Buddy maps 335 dedicated claw-machine arcades; at least one in five opened since 2024

DALLAS, September 29, 2026 – The claw-machine arcade boom now has a number. Claw Machine Buddy, a crowdsourced directory of claw machines in the US, Canada and England, today released State of the Clawcade 2026, the first venue-by-venue count of dedicated claw-machine arcades in the United States.

The report counts 335 clawcades nationwide, inside the industry estimate of 300 to 400 cited by the Wall Street Journal in August. At least one in five first appeared on Google since the start of 2024.

Texas leads the country with 73 clawcades, 22% of the national total in a state with about 9% of the US population. Houston has more than any other metro area (28), and Dallas-Fort Worth ranks fourth (17). Las Vegas has the most per resident, at 9.6 per million.

The report also analyzed about 120,000 Google reviews. Among reviews that mention claw machines, 21% at large arcade chains use words like "rigged" or "scam", compared with 12% at dedicated clawcades. At more than half of clawcades, players mention trading in prizes for bigger ones.

"Everyone assumes claw machines are rigged, and the reviews say that's mostly a chain-arcade problem," said Erin Covert, founder of Claw Machine Buddy. "The new clawcades are built around people actually winning, and they're opening faster than anyone was tracking. Texas is where it's happening first."

The full report, rankings by metro area and downloadable data are at https://clawmachinebuddy.com/reports/state-of-the-clawcade-2026.

Claw Machine Buddy (clawmachinebuddy.com) is a free, crowdsourced directory of places to play claw machines, with player reports on prices, prizes and how winnable the machines are. It is based in Dallas.

Media contact: Erin Covert, ecovert@lumingolabs.com