My kids love something like this we see every year at the traveling fair. It's the same idea but with rubber duckies floating around and having to catch them with a small pole with a hook attached. It's €20 for 2 kids to have 2 minutes of fun and the payoff is a €1 Aliexpress/Temu pollution generator disguised as a toy. They play with it for a day before it ends up in the trash.

The first few years I hated this for exactly the reasons you mention, but now I'm just happy they are happy. I think I have a few more years left before they don't want to go rubber ducky fishing with their dad no more and I doubt by then €20 gets me 2 minutes of joy with them.

It sounds like you've got an opportunity to set up something like this at home. You'd feel like you were getting ripped off less, and make the rewards at the fair seem less attractive to "what we have at home". The challenge, of course, is to still make it feel like a special occasion...

In the UK this is called:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook-a-duck

Well, your child is spending 0€, getting a bit of fun with a game, and getting a reward afterwards, which is randomized (more dopamine). That seems like an amazing trade.

As an adult, if I went and they said it cost 0€, I think I'd play too.

Don't overthink it, I think you are being a bit cynical. If your kid enjoys it then it's worth the money. If you can't afford that then find other things your kid enjoys.

The reward of a game is playing it, not the 'prize', although that can add to the enjoyment too.

> maybe you spend €10 and you get a gift that you could buy for €2

Oh yes, I got it, they are like the claw machines that have fake bills and iPhones with them (at least that's what I saw too).

But the point of having fun, you know it's a rigged game.

It's kinda like a slot machine. Or loot boxes. Kids love drugs too!

I would have killed to play carnival games like that when I was a kid but they were absolutely strictly forbidden, because 1) they are obviously not worth the price (scam) and 2) prizes are just junk that we didn't have room in the house for anyways.

You can just say no. I have never played a single one of those types of games in my life because once I was old enough to work I understood my parents point of view. I'm actually thankful for them teaching me these sorts of lessons no matter how much I hated at the time. It's actually okay to not allow your children participate in cons and scams.