Trick or treat is already a game, and a claw machine is the arcade version of it. A cabinet appears over your costume, candy or décor store, the shopper presses GRAB, the claw slides across the pit, drops, closes and lifts. On a treat the ball rides up and a code is theirs once they leave an email; on the trick the ball slips at the last second. Our server decides which, not the browser. This page is the full setup: a treat-bag prize table with the trick built in, the copy for the four screens, the display rules for 24 to 31 October 2026, and what to read in the report on 1 November.
Most prize games have to apologise for their losing outcome. At Halloween the losing outcome is the joke: a ball that slips out of the claw is the trick, and the shopper knew one was in the pit. That lets you run an honest table where almost every grab pays and the rare miss still lands well.
Any prize in the table can be marked as a Losing option. It keeps its label and its share of the draw, but when the roll lands on it the claw lifts the ball, lets it slip and drops it back, the Losing screen shows and no code is attached. You decide how often the trick happens, to the percent.
The week before Halloween is when costumes, candy and décor get bought, and 1 November is when nobody wants to see a pumpkin. Display rules take a start and an end date in your time zone: set Saturday 24 to Saturday 31 October 2026 and the machine arrives and leaves on its own.
When GRAB is pressed the button locks and the browser asks our server for the outcome. The server reads your saved prize table, rolls a weighted draw, records the play and answers win or lose; only then does the claw animate to the result. Codes travel only inside a winning answer, and if the server cannot be reached the grab resolves as a loss.
Five treats and one trick, adding up to exactly 100%. Type the labels, codes and chances into the Prizes panel like this and flag the last row as a Losing option.
| In the pit | Reward code | Win chance | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% off | TREAT10 | 40% | The everyday treat. Most grabs bring this one up, and each one arrives with an email. |
| Free shipping | TREATSHIP | 20% | A fixed cost to you, and the prize that matters most in the last week, when a costume has to arrive before the 31st. |
| 15% off | TREAT15 | 15% | A step up that still leaves margin on full-price costumes and décor. |
| Free candy bag | TREATBAG | 10% | A gift with purchase, set up however your checkout handles one. Small cost, and the prize that fits the week. |
| 30% off | TREAT30 | 5% | The prize people mention. Five grabs in a hundred, with a minimum basket on the code to cap what each one costs. |
| The trick Losing option | none | 10% | Flagged as a Losing option: it keeps its label and its share of the draw, but the claw lets the ball slip and the Losing screen shows. No code is ever attached to it. |
Read across the table and the arithmetic is plain: with these odds, every hundred grabs bring up roughly forty 10% codes, twenty free-shipping codes, fifteen 15% codes, ten candy-bag codes and five 30% codes, and ten shoppers watch the ball slip. Because the rows total 100% there is no leftover: the trick is the only way to lose, and you set how often it happens. Change any percentage and the editor shows the chance of not winning as you type.
A claw machine has four screens: Play, Post-Play, Winning and Losing. Each is its own canvas in the editor. Write {{prize_label}} and {{prize_code}} anywhere in the Post-Play or Winning copy and the prize the claw brought up fills them in.
Headline: Trick or treat? Press GRAB and find out.
Sub-line: One grab. Up to 30% off costumes, candy and décor until midnight on the 31st.
GRAB is the game's one control; its label comes with the theme and it locks after one play, so the copy has one job: say what is in the pit and how long the code lasts.
Headline: Treat: {{prize_label}}.
Sub-line: Enter your email and your code appears here. It is good until 31 October, 23:59.
One email field and one button. This screen appears only after a winning grab, so the trick never asks anyone for anything.
Headline: Your treat: {{prize_label}}. Code {{prize_code}}.
Sub-line: Order by Tuesday 27 October for delivery before the 31st.
Confetti is on by default here. Swap 27 October for your own last shipping date, and add a button pointing at the costume collection so the code gets used while the claw is still on screen.
Headline: The ball slipped. That was the trick.
Sub-line: The treats are still in the shop: the Halloween collection is reduced all week, and orders by the 27th arrive in time.
The trick row and any leftover both land here after the slip. The Losing screen is where a claw machine is most remembered; keep it good-humoured and give the shopper a door.
A claw machine carries the same display rules as every ChilliPopup popup: six triggers, targeting, frequency caps and a schedule. This is the set that fits eight days of costume shopping.
/halloween in the card), shows it there and nowhere else, so the cart and checkout never see it. Page rules are any-match: a campaign shows wherever at least one of its page rules is true, so use either contains rules for the pages you want or a single doesn't-contain rule, never both.A claw machine is a popup with a game on its Play screen. If you have built a ChilliPopup popup before, you already know the editor.
Make one discount code per treat (TREAT10, TREATSHIP, TREAT15, TREATBAG, TREAT30) in Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix or whatever runs your checkout. Set each to expire on 31 October and give TREAT30 a minimum basket. The trick needs no code.
Pick Inferno Vault or Neon Vault, type the prize table into the Prizes panel, flag "The trick" as a Losing option, then write the four screens and restyle the popup around the cabinet. Every block is drag-and-drop, and your own fonts are welcome.
Enter the schedule, triggers, page rule and frequency above, then publish. If the ChilliPopup pixel is already on your site there is nothing else to install: the machine appears on Saturday 24 October on its own, and changing a prize or its odds later needs no redeploy.
There is no dedicated Halloween template, and the cabinet itself is not something you repaint: each claw theme carries its own cabinet, window, claw and rail colours, its ball palette, a pit of three to six balls and its GRAB label. Pick the machine that already looks like October, then rewrite and restyle everything around it.
A claw machine gets two reports: the popup report every ChilliPopup campaign has, and a game report built from the server's own record of each grab.
Campaign ideas for costume, candy, party and décor stores, from the first week of October to the night itself, with the popup that fits each.
Read the guide →How the cabinet, prize balls and odds work, where the email ask belongs, the display rules to pair it with, and the copy that makes visitors press GRAB.
Read the guide →How exit intent works, what to offer a visitor who is leaving, and how to pair it with a second trigger so mobile shoppers are not left out.
Read the guide →Type in the prize table, flag the trick, write the four screens, set 24 to 31 October and publish. The machine opens itself on the Saturday before Halloween, our server decides every grab, and every treat you hand out comes with an email.