For some people, the Pokemon Trading Card Game is a big money business. I’ve been covering it for a few years now, but everything TCG-related is being scalped, selling out instantly, and is immediately relisted on the secondary market for obscene amounts of cash. This has driven individual card prices to record highs.
Things have been taken to the next level with the rise of gambling sites that offer players the chance to pay real money for a minute chance of hitting a big chase card. GameStop’s Power Packs, which could be illegal under certain laws, are one example of this, and other sites, like Total Cards and Packz do similar.
While regulation remains unchecked, one of these gambling apps has skyrocketed its way up the iPhone App Store, hitting the number one spot in the charts— weirdly in the gaming section.
A Pokemon TCG Gambling App Is Now Topping The iPhone’s Gaming Charts, Showing The Dire State Of The Card Game
Crown Cards, as first noted by Kanto Post, currently sits atop the iPhone App Store’s gaming charts. It offers players the chance to “pull genuine trading cards from your phone” and describes itself as a “digital pack-opening experience built around real collectibles.” Functionally, it is gambling.
It advertises real card packs “valued up to $100,000”, but the chances of winning these are extremely slim, and require a high outlay, preying on those with an addictive personality.
Packs start at as little as $1, offering a 0.6 percent chance to win a card between $4 and $20 and can get as expensive as $5,000, with odds of 2.3 percent to win a $9,500 to $100,000 card — notice the huge disparity in prize value.
We put $10 into the app for science, and it’s clear just how addictive it can get for people who are that way inclined. Our first $10 pack yielded an $8 card, which we could sell and use to buy a lower-value pack. We did, and our money kept tumbling. Eventually, it grew again, and we pulled a $20 card. We quickly sold it and used the profits, plus what we had left over, to open a $25 pack. Eventually, our pot fell to $0.
The pack carousel is similar to the one in Pokemon TCG Pocket, and it’s almost scary how easy it is to spend money on Crown Cards. It offers occasional big wins to keep hope alive, then drains your account. It’s textbook gambling.
There have been calls for regulation on this type of service, and some have deemed it to be illegal gambling, but it still remains, and while it does, people will surely lose a lot of money.
- Original Release Date
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October 20, 1996
- Player Count
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2
- Age Recommendation
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6+
- Length per Game
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Variable
- Franchise Name
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Pokemon
