Opening booster packs of Pokémon cards has experienced a boom on Twitch. Streamers invest huge sums in new packs hoping for rare cards. Is this already gambling?
Here’s the deal: In one of the current streaming trends, Pokémon trading cards play an important role. Opening booster packs attracts hundreds of thousands of viewers to the channels of streamers like Trymacs and Papaplatte .
Streamers open the packs hoping to get rare and expensive cards that have a high collector’s value. For example, a Holo-Charizard card in the right condition costs over 50,000 dollars. The excitement is great when one actually gets the card in one’s booster pack.
However, the booster packs from older editions now cost a lot of money.
- For one of their streams, Trymacs and Papaplatte bought a display for a whopping 40,000 euros.
- Another display from 1999 of the first generation was sold for 408,000 dollars.
- The YouTuber Logan Paul even invested a whopping 2 million dollars in Pokémon packs.
It is far from guaranteed that streamers will get the particularly valuable cards from their boosters.
Thus, one invests high sums of money hoping to receive an even higher sum in returns. It’s a principle that actually underlies gambling. Trading card games have been popular among young and adult players for decades and are not considered gambling in Germany.
We want to know from you: Do you think this is already gambling or are these just harmless Pokémon cards that shouldn’t be taken too seriously? Share your opinions and reasons in the comments.
We also discussed the topic in our MeinMMO podcast:
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