Topic: Do you think this is gambling? [Collectibles & Gambling] - page 2. (Read 306 times)

It depends on how a person thinks about buying a Pokemon Card like what's the purpose of buying it.

There are reasons why users are doing stuff like that e.g for collection, investment, or trading.

For collection, then they don't care if they spend decent to get those cards. For investment, it's like hoarding those good cards and then sell later in the future. For trading, a chance to get a decent card in exchange for several cards of yours.


I will rephrase this statement of yours, "it's a bad idea if you don't know anything about Pokemon cards".

I don't think there's any difference between this a collecting baseball cards, pokemon cards, buying real estate or picking stocks, anything sort of asset is a gamble in and of itself.  Bitcoin itself, is a gamble.  I think the important thing is just to remember to always diversify your assets and only "gamble" as much as you're willing to lose when it comes to more exotic types of gambling endeavors such as this one.

Investing in collectibles would look good for collectors but not for people who doesn't see any value in those items hehe. I'm not really a fan of card collections so I think it's too risky to throw thousands of dollars for a set that you don't even know the value of what's inside. Maybe you could call that a gamble since it's also like a game of chance.

I think so, because it's a game of luck. There can be rare cards inside the boxes, but you never know until opening them. So you have to be lucky in order to purchase the right boxes where the valuable cards will be stored. If you are unlucky you will get boxes with common cards, which may end leading you to losses when comparing the price you paid for the box and the value of the cards inside it.

Like in gambling, if you are lucky enough you can win thousands of dollars opening those boxes. I have heard stories of people who did pretty well doing this and made successful auctions right after with the rare collectibles.

If you buy the cards, there is the same amount of cards present in the box, the only difference is the kind of cards in that box is not known.  The price goes up because of the demand created by the buyers.  So buying the same quantity of cards with unknown quality isn't gambling, IMO.  Besides the value of these cards is created by the community and not by the company that sells these cards.

It is upto the user, because if he/she find the surprise boxes out of the boxes to be a surprise then this is gambling. We don't know whether there'll be more other cards or not, and that makes even a surprise card gambling. If the cards were got without spending then it is okay, but thousands of dollars is being is used for the purchase.

Totally agree on this point which is actually that precise because not all that buying those boxes are really that thinking or minding about value on whats inside the box and there are some
people who do really have those sentimental reasons which same as you said, whether they are really buying for something that includes into their collection or something that
really make out some counting on how many boxes he had purchased or any possible reasons that could be tied up.Everything doesnt really always involved money
or people been looking for something like this.You cant really generalize and tell that money is always everything on particular actions been made.

I think it is in part, because you are banking on the possibility that any of these cards contain something of high value, kinda like the lottery which is more of a chance in getting a huge payout. Then again, if we go by that logic, a lot of things will be considered as gambling, as we always expect to net something positive on our choice to invest on something. Gambling by definition and in general covers a lot of things if we are pedantic about it, but others always beg to differ.

If buying boxes of collectible cards is gambling.

Could going out in public without a mask, risking infection and illness might be considered gambling? Having sex without a condom also gambling? Eating day old fast food, gambling?

An expansion of the term gambling could be applied to almost everything. Creating additional red tape and regulation. But would there be any tangible benefits to it?

Purchasing boxes of (CCG) collectible card game packs is a straight buy. While some might hope to profit monetarily. The motive behind the purchase could also be for sentimental reasons or /other. Buying a box of CCG cards for sentimental reasons, wouldn't qualify as a gamble or speculation. The motive behind the purchase is relevant.

There are games like Call of Duty (mobile) which have yet to ban loot boxes or regulate them as gambling afaik.

It is possible that whatever movement there was to crackdown on things like lootboxes in video games has stalled and lost momentum.

That is a type of investment and I've seen that happening in some other known animes like Pokemon and a simple card collecting like the brand of cards that I've seen, bicycle.

It isn't a type of gambling but there's risk that gambling has it too. I would like to do it and do it in some other forms and it's not a bad idea if you know what you're doing and understands the value of those.

That's the risk and it's part of it but if an enthusiast or collector wants to have those badly, they'll just take it from someone who has the actual card/character that they're looking for and will just have to resell it with a higher price.

Although, it's really costly if that's the thing.

If you are buying purely for price appreciation then yes of course it is.  There is a chance it plummets or skyrockets.  It's just as much gambling as buying metals, stocks, anything that is bought for price appreciation.  It probably has a more limited downside than straight betting but it is still gambling with your money.

Collectibles are not gambling despite of it’s risk since there’s no assurance about the value of the item you are collecting, there’s a lot of collector who love doing this not because they gamble but because they love to do it and they can afford to do that. Gambling is pure of luck while collectibles are not since you are buying with the things that is already have a value in the market, the risk is you can’t just sell it easily at a higher price.

Nope that's not gambling but rather a hobby. Maybe there are scene that some of the collector open a pack then hoping to get a rare cards which have huge value but that doesn't mean we can categorize it as a gambling. People who are in this industry is just having fun since this create different vibes to them and for sure those collectors only can feel what they are into because for other people who don't understand what they are doing will just threat this as waste of money time and think about they are gambling.

When you're buying/investing/betting something in the hope of gaining profit then you are gambling, gaming and gambling are very similar in so many ways both are a form of entertainment and you have to invest in both and your investment should be money that you can afford to lose, people who started as a gamer most of the times ended up as gambler, and if you've started as a player you'll have basic knowledge on how to play in a gambling site, so there's hardly any difference between the two.

Yes, it's a form of gambling, but then again, many things in life are a form of gambling. For example, we gamble every day when we get into a car or take a bus to get to work because there is a possibility of an accident on the road. However, we accept these risks because we know that the chances of this happening are very small.

Personally, I would not do this if the chances of winning are very low. Instead, I might try to find a way to peek inside the package without opening it.

Very little chances of winning has never stopped or discouraged any serious gambler from gambling. And in this case, I will not really consider it gambling because of this
although it has similarities with gambling but if you consider it, there is no potential estimate of what you can win like gambling that has estimates, but this just has the possibility of you winning without knowing what you will win even if you win.

Some people will call it gambling, but i don't think it is in a proper and actual sense.

Well, looking at it from that point of view, I imagine this could look like a lottery, and the main prize in this case could be an extremely rare card.

One of the differences is that in the lottery you will be able to choose the numbers you want to bet, unlike finding a rare card in a pack for example, in which you will have the chance to have found an extremely rare card or not.

What you have to ask is... what is the possibility of you finding 1 extremely rare card in a card of pack? 1 in 1000? (0.1%) or 1 in 10000? (0.01%)

Another interesting variable to analyze is the upside (of this possible bet)
For example, making a simple buy/bet!

1 pack of cards costs $100
If I get an extremely rare card, like the one in the video ($40,000)
I could make 39,900% profit!

Regarding the lottery, let's assume the ticket will cost $10 and the jackpot is $100,000
With this, we will have an appreciation/profit of ~999,900%

PS: I quoted these numbers/values ​​only to clarify and perform some calculations

Conclusion, I believe that both are similar types of bets, the main difference is that in the lottery you can bet on any number you want, unlike the cards.

There is also a way for you to win the lottery, it would be necessary for you to bet on ALL possible numbers, even then it would not be worth it, because betting on all possible possibilities would be more expensive than the prize obtained in the lottery!

Between "losing" money in the lottery or buying collectible cards, I would choose the cards, because if I don't get a rare card, I would still have the other cards 

Indeed it is the same as loot boxes but I do not think that the government considered that gambling.  I believe it has something to do about trading cards where rarer cards are getting more expensive.  The value of the cards depends on the demand, as far as I know, value of cards changes from time to time.  It is more like NFT loot boxes if we compare it to today's technological trend.


The main reason is that people spend money and got an item in return, a person spending money doesn't lose anything.  That is the main concept of loot boxes that separate them from gambling.

We may have a different point of view but the point here is the buyer doesn't lose money and have an item that is agreed upon purchase.

This is where gambling and gaming become similar they invest or bet on something on gambling you bet on your favorite players or teams to win or bet on dice and other games, on gaming you bought something that will add value to your character in the hope that it will have edge over the other players and eventually win in this case he bought cards for a chance to find cards worth thousands of dollars, the saying and the advice only invest what you can afford to lose applies so I consider this gambling, there's not much difference after all.

These are collectibles and some consider this as gambling since you can’t know if there’s a value for that or none at all but to collector they consider this as their investments since they believe that it has a value and other collectors might be interested to get that collectibles. We might consider this as inactive gambling since you are buying things with a hope that you might get precious item which we can also consider you depend on your luck.