The Chuck E. Cheese Gamble

Brendan on one of his first Chuck E. Cheese adventures.

Last week was Chuck E. Cheese night at Brendan and Colin’s elementary school. For my boys the event is one of the highlights of the school year. Yet for me, and most moms I know, the night is anticipated in much the same way as a root canal.

Don’t get me wrong, I love when my boys are happy. I strive to make them happy. And that is why, in the last four years we have never missed one of these evenings. Foolishly, when Brendan, my oldest was in kindergarten, I was as excited as he was. I naively thought it would be a fun, mother-son night on the town. Boy, was I wrong! Within minutes, he was swept into the sea of Chuck E. Cheese fun with his fellow starry-eyed classmates. I was left standing alone, consumed by the joyful screeching and dumbfounded by the obsessive collection of tickets.

For those of you unfamiliar with Chuck E. Cheese, it is, as I soon discovered, a casino for children. Money is exchanged for tokens which are in turn used to play video games, ride on small mechanical rides, and gambled away for much sought after tickets.

Just as casinos supply players with endless cocktails, Chuck E. Cheese offers unlimited, self-serve, sugar-filled soda that is consumed by the gallon. This in turn, leads to more screeching, demands for more tokens, and ultimately more “fun.”

The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced I was on to something with the Chuck E. Cheese/Casino analogy. I looked around. Did you know that the few windows that do exist in Chuck E Cheese are either blocked by large games or blacked out? It’s true and thus, like a casino, creates an atmosphere where time stands still. With the differentiation between night and day erased, it is assumed that your child will never need a nap, never need to leave and do homework, never need to go OUTSIDE and enjoy the fresh, screechless air.

As I looked around watching my sons and their classmates enjoy the Chuck E. Cheese madness I witnessed the obsessive collection of tickets, which sealed the deal for me. There were actually families navigating the maze of games with large trash bags filled with tickets, which I can only assume had been collected over numerous visits.

Man! I thought. Chuck had concocted quite a clever way to keep his customers coming back. As I looked around I realized that almost a third of the “games” at Chuck E Cheese were not even real, test-your-skills games. Instead, numerous “put-your-token-in-and-randomly-win-a-certain-number-of-tickets” machines were attracting the children like flies. Oh my God! These are slot machines for kids, I realized!!

A lucky few, after trying numerous times, were walking away with 25 tickets. It was only after consulting the prize board (the place were ticket-collecting children trade in their tickets for prizes) that I learned that the lucky 25-ticket holding child only needed 1,275 more tickets to walk away with a $5 Crayola Magic Pen and Coloring Book Set.

Seriously?

I am in no way a math expert, but according to my calculations, it would take approximately $120 and 14 trips to Chuck E Cheese, to “win” this coveted prize. Would it not be more fiscally responsible to teach a child to save his allowance, tooth fairy earnings, or birthday money, and accompany mom on a trip to Target and purchase the Crayola set for himself?

Perhaps. But not nearly as fun.

And that is why I continue to take my kids to Chuck E Cheese, aka the Casino for Kids, because for me, a trip to Target is infinitely more expensive J

~ Kelly