[Alex Murphy]

...in a bowling alley across the street from that apartment, patrons were marveling at the sight of a little boy—surrounded by stuffed animals—sitting inside an arcade-style claw machine....how’d he get into the machine in the first place? Nobody’s certain, but according to a BuzzFeed report, one bowling alley employee speculated the child might have climbed in through the machine’s prize door.

I can't see how the kid could have climbed in via the prize door. I wonder if anyone played the machine, trying to win him for a dollar?

[Jack Hydrazine]

Just watch these examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MxcUlJZlp8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cGwumNaccM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa0ROnznKLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhJIZf1dtg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhJIZf1dtg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ-lbNFL_5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ym9c3cuKs

[SWAMPSNIPER]

This isn’t the first time a kid has done this, it is fairly common.

[a fool in paradise]

I suspect each of these stories (there have been some big kids inside them in the English version of these stories) are publicity stunts. I’ve never read of a single lawsuit against the business or the company that makes the machines.