From trading the cards to battling with them, Pokémon cards are an integral part of childhood. But in recent years, their increasing popularity has brought to light the shady business of selling a chance to children.
According to CardLadder, a premier resource for measuring a card’s worth that compiles sales recorded across the internet, sales in April 2026 soared to more than $600 million from only $400 million at the start of the year. The market has spiked after the excitement generated by Logan Paul’s sale of the $16 million Illustrator Pikachu and the franchise’s 30th anniversary.
This excitement over Pokémon has drawn the attention of an easy-to-manipulate audience: children. The colorful cards and popular characters, combined with the seeming innocence of the product, make it easy for children to become addicted. Fourth Former Oliver Peters-Whitaker, owner of Malvern card store King Street Cards, said, “Opening Pokémon cards is considerably more dangerous than gambling or buying a lottery ticket. The only way you could possibly not become infatuated with the risk and reward of opening packs is if you either have no real connection to the characters found in the pack, or if you have already convinced yourself that you will get nothing from every pack.”
He believes there is a strong psychological effect from getting nothing.
“The feeling of having lost something that belongs to you is so powerful that it drives people to buy more packs and lose more money, which repeats the cycle,” Peters-Whitaker said.
This affects all customers but especially those middle and high school-aged, who make up the majority of their customer base.
These cards represent a gray area between toys and gambling. Although studies from the National Library of Medicine show that there is no direct correlation between opening booster packs and having gambling problems, these studies also mention that opening booster packs mirrors the kind of gambling found in casinos.
Furthermore, research on this matter fails to address the fact that Pokémon, even if not a form of gambling, is becoming increasingly expensive. This is a result of the sheer demand for Pokémon and the card re-selling that ensues. While buying a pack for market price is often only around $5 per booster, on the secondary market, the same pack will fetch double or triple the price. Third Former Noah Gates, who buys from Pokémon vending machines, expressed the mentality this instills.
“It’s only a $5 pack, all I can lose is $5, which turns into buying a $200 booster box,” he said.
“If you’re going to collect Pokémon, don’t say ‘rip packs,’ more so ‘collect cards,’ because you end up spending so much money and you wish that you spent that money on a card that you actually want.”
Noah Gates ’29
This is a best-case scenario, however: the majority of Pokémon sales happen on second-hand sites such as eBay and TCGPlayer, where independent sellers can charge a premium due to the lack of standard retail availability.
Many argue that these cards are instead more like stocks than gambling. Cards such as the Illustrator Pikachu have been known to double in price over time. However, much of the secondary market is saturated by modern products, which, unlike older cards and stocks, are not scarce to any extent. In the entire history of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, nearly 100 billion cards have been printed, and 50% of those have been printed in the last five years.
“The Pokémon card market is artificially inflated. It is not as unusual as it is disappointing that people will spend over two times the retail price for a product,” Peters-Whitaker said. “People see others get expensive and cool cards online and believe they can do the same, when in reality the chance of pulling something good is entirely determined by how lucky you are.”
This aspect of the “hobby” is another factor. An instance of this was the initial “hype-phase” in 2021, where Logan Paul’s Pokémon YouTube videos contributed to the almost 250% increase in card sales. Online content is especially influential on youth, with more than 50% viewing social media influencers as role models equal to their parents, according to the National Literacy Trust.
Despite all these factors, regulations on trading cards remain unwanted and undiscussed. Ultimately, children do not have enough money to plunge themselves into debt, and their actions remain in the hands of their guardians, who are responsible for teaching their children about making responsible purchases.
“It’s fine to collect cards. If you’re going to collect Pokémon, don’t say ‘rip packs,’ more so ‘collect cards,’ because you end up spending so much money and you wish that you spent that money on a card that you actually want,” Gates said.
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