Pokemon TCG - Fuck Them Kids

Go to the official Pokemon TCG Youtube outlets and you will see tournaments, recorded or current. There's advertisements for new packs, often with a song reciting each new card as they dance before your eyes. The tournaments often feature people spinning wheels of fortune in the downtime to win booster packs. Nobody mentions the value of the cards, of course.

I've watched competitors play with decks that I knew, based on the value of the cards alone, had to be worth thousands of dollars. Thousands!! The presenters don't say a word about it, and neither do the contestants - I imagine both are under strict obligation not to.

Why? The moment they acknowledge the aftermarket prices of these cards, that people buy cards and don't just trade them, the whole scene becomes at risk of regulation. Because then, people would be pouring their money into something hoping for a valuable outcome. Then they'd get regulated for the use of gambling.

But you know, as long as the company pretends they don't know, it's fine. Like they're just oblivious dumbasses or something, and not a multi-million cabinet of baby-eaters. You know, they just made a few hundreds of millions by accident and never thought to wonder why. The idea is honestly so ludicrous, it wraps back around to being funny.

Gambling? Aimed at kids? It's just Pokemon cards! You might scoff. It's Pokemon, they're cute little guys!

Of course, this isn't gambling, it's just, it's just you know, cute, they're pokemon, it's-

It's gambling

I walked into a shop some time ago and asked, politely, if they had Pokemon cards. I felt very awkward doing this, but I tried to be nice enough. The shopkeeper shook his head and laughed. "Nope. But you know, you're the third person to come in today and ask me that?" It was around midday, in a small shop in an even smaller town.

Some weeks later, in another town I walked into a shop and before I got to the counter, the only other person in the shop - a lanky young man who couldn't have been older than 24 - asked the cashier the same thing. I didn't even register it until after I'd asked the cashier too!

I was oblivious about all of this until I started playing the game again. Like many people, I had cards from the first ever expansion from my sibling, and I had forgotten all about it until some time last year, Pokemon tins show up in my local shop: quickly the shelf is cleared. Next week they show up, but this time they have security tags attached.

Oh, I thought. So it's like that.

This addiction is fucking crazy

Though I'm playing this game with my family, I've known enough gambling addicts to know that exposing anyone to these mechanics risks addicting them (even me). So, I avoid engaging in the process in a manner that encourages it. But since I'm no expert, the first thing I did was look up how to engage with this process responsibly.

There were basically no answers, though - just some anecdotes. I've shared some of these below.

A collection of comments from the Pokemon TCG subreddits last year.

"I realized I had a problem a month after I got back into collecting and $1000 of packs later."

"I started seriously thinking about buying a house and realized I was short of a comfortable down payment with some savings leftover. And I did an in depth budget review and found I’d spent $2000+ each of the previous two years."

"[...]I spent $2,000 easily on booster boxes. Just to chase a card that in the end sat in my binder and dropped in value considerably."

"I would recommend treating it the same way as gambling: expect to lose. Expect to not hit the chase card and to never see the money again
Source: spent 3k trying to hit the Zard in Shining Fates..."

"I've probably spent $3000 and since January however I tried really hard to be very strategic about it for example."

"I've opened hundreds of packs over the last year - huge quantities of every set from Paradox Rift to present - and lost thousands of dollars doing so. I have never once hit the main chase I was looking for from any of those sets."

"I've already spent $3000 chasing after SAR Pikachu, Milotic and Shiny Treasure ex Gardevoir as well as an additional $2k trying to find Greninja or Carmine, and Iono. Realizing I could have saved this money for a new car or trip to travel that's when I snapped out of it."

"lol pokemon cards actually made me understand how gambling addicts feel. It’s just funny cause I have a really addictive personality and I have actually dropped thousands of dollars into ripping packs (I hit butthole pikachu on my 90th packs and still ripped 450 total for a second one and didn’t hit)"

"I think I might have created an addiction for my kid. I got him 23 sleeved booster packs and he got some high value cards that are selling on TCG for a total of $600. He’s now bugging me to get more boosters but I’ve explained to him it’s only downhill from here."

"At least once a week I find myself spending money I don't have on packs, often 50-100 dollars at a time, often pulling absolutely nothing. I tell myself I'm going to stop, this is a waste of money and not worth it, but then I come to this subreddit and see post after post of people hitting chases. "First booster pack I've bought in 10 years!" and they get the card I've spent literally thousands of dollars trying to hit. I see enough of those posts and convince myself I'm going to win with the next packs I buy and the cycle starts over."

"I wouldn't say your addicted. I've opened over a thousand of just surging sparks and haven't pulled a Pikachu. You're just unlucky like everyone else who doesn't brag about magic car pulls. May help to buy packs from different places. Some stores get all the bad pulls in the universe sent there. Smart to keep a log where you go and to mix it up. Buy different products. You have to outsmart the jerks at Pokémon Co. who purposely send certain areas zero pikachus. Don't give up. Winning is possible. You can beat the system."

Last modified: March 31, 2026