The following tweet appeared in my Twitter feed yesterday:
Pokémon has a gambling problem. Where there’s gambling, there are people drawn to it because they’re gambling people with an addiction. Too many people use opening packs as a way of getting the dopamine fix they crave. They’ll literally pay thousands of dollars to pull a card worth… hundreds.
The math doesn’t math
Considering how many packs you have to open for a reasonable chance to find one of the most expensive cards in each set, it’s cheaper just to buy that same expensive card on the secondary market. The people who open packs know this.
For $188, someone could buy 36 sleeved booster packs of Perfect Order. That’s only if they could find them for the MSRP price of $4.99.
Pokémon doesn’t release the odds of finding a chase card in its English sets. According to the Pokémon YouTuber Ptsgradio, the odds of finding a Special Illustration Rare (SIR) card, such as the Meowth ex, are 1 in 81 packs. There are six SIR cards in Perfect Order. That means even if you do pull an SIR card from one of those 81 packs, there’s only a 1 in 6 chance it will be the Meowth ex.
That math doesn’t deter the gambling addict. If anything, it only makes the experience more exciting.
Gambling addiction is a recognized mental health problem
I’m sure there are addicts suffering from a gambling disorder, a mental disorder recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5), who don’t even realize they have a problem. They just know they enjoy opening Pokémon packs. Just how problematic can Pokémon cards be? It’s a kid’s game, right?
Right. And that’s how people get into trouble.
In conclusion
When you see people lined up at Target at 7:30 AM for Pokémon, they’re either addicts or people who sell to addicts. It doesn’t matter which side of the coin they are. Scalpers exist because of gambling addicts.
They’re the only people existing in the hobby who will willingly pay far more than retail for sealed products.
