Bitcoin Forum

Good afternoon.
I would like to know your opinion about this: the other night I found a YT channel where a guy bought a box of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, this box was of the first set released back in early 2000's called "Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon".

https://youtu.be/3_yCLmm2qOw

The exotic part of this video is the fact these boxes are sold for over 25,000$ and only one pack of the box can be worth about 1000$.

You can some examples here:

www.ebay.com/itm/115470621070
www.ebay.com/itm/115505412383

This guy bought and proceed to (painfully) open each of the packs inside the box, because there are chances to find cards worth thousands of dollars themselves:

www.ebay.com/itm/334566973621
www.ebay.com/itm/284845253155
www.ebay.com/itm/165705601129
www.ebay.com/itm/274989636523

---

Do you consider doing this a form of gambling?
Would you dare to do the same thing for the sake of earning money or do you think it would be a bad idea?

I personally think it would be a bad idea since the chances of pulling out a good card is fairly small, one needs to really like the game/cards in order to open an unsealed box of such value.

This is just the same on Pokémon cards opening where as each card set has a rare card inside that have a value of thousands however I won't classify it as Gambling per sé. I would rather lean more on Investment on assets as the value of each card either depreciate or appreciate on the card's rarity, condition and other qualities it has. But it still depends on each individual on how they'll see it just like Gacha games.

In fact, this is no different from loot boxes, and in many countries they are recognized as a form of gambling. I see no reason why these collectibles/boxes cannot be considered gambling.
Probably, people still doubt whether it is right to consider such collecting mechanics as gambling only because of the strength of traditions. It used to be considered normal to buy such magic boxes with an indeterminate value, but now all this is relegated to gambling.
I wonder when consumer extremism (sometimes it really takes inadequate forms) will make people consider fortune cookies and all that to be gambling? Hahaha.

I don't think it is called gambling because in gambling you enter to win more money and not to find rare items of a certain game.This can be compared more to spoiled children who use their mom or dad credit card to buy all the level up items of a character in their favorite RPG/Action game,it sure resembles more to this and to people playing online games fighting each other each spending a lot of money to fine tune their character.This for me is not gambling as gambling is continuous while these people once they get what they want they stop rather than finding a new game.Sure it has some elements of gambling which is spending money to entertain yourself which is every gambler's excuse to gambling but only this and nothing more.

Collectibles and collections are more in investments rather than gambling. Collecting doens't fall to any kind of gambling category where people bet and gain after a win from a certain events or sports.
Since it was bought in 2000's the value of it for today is already too high considering there still a market for it which really falls in investment idea of "buy low sell high".

Yes, maybe we can consider it as an investment, some of the collectibles collections are rare, people with collections collect item based on their preferences, it is not related to gambling, it is more of investment. And yes if it is bought last 2000 it is better to see or to research how much it will be cost now before opening, so that we can preserve the value of it. Collections needed more money since it is expensive.

I agree, just like what others collectibles cards in the past, you will have to spend some money but in return you will find some rare card inside that can be worth on what you originally pay for it. But it won't be classify as gambling as the card itself is already collectibles and you can trade it to someone. As opposed to gambling wherein you already lost your money already once you start to put your bet unless you're lucky and win. And then others will hold for this card in hope that one day the value will be worth more, you can't find that on gambling.

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.

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.

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.

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  :P :)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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". :)

Someone who buys that without a background is literally gambling. Like buying boxes of those cards with a worth of $100-$1000 then hopes that he'll get a card with a value of more than he's expecting is a literal gamble.
Everyone is aware of the easy logic of appreciating value and those that actually no value at all in terms of those cards and boxes. If you've been a fan of those collectors that are also unboxing their purchases, it is one of the encouragements why some other people are also trying to do exactly what they do.
But the difference is that these people knows what they do and they have an expected fair value in return, unlike someone who's new to it or doesn't have a background's thinking that he's going to get a clean profit from doing it.

Thank you all for your opinion on this matter. It seems the community is rather divided on whether this is gambling or not, some even pointing out this depends on the intention of the buyer. I believe it is crazy of much some collectibles of successful franchises can be worth after only two decades, it is a bit unreal, because I recall seeing these boxes being sold at the stores here in my city back in 2003 for a very small money in comparison.

Also, since there is not much to be further discussed I'll proceed to lock this thread within approximately 24 hours. I believe it is enough threshold for those who want to add another comment or reply to posts directed to them.  ;)

I couldn't agree more. It is just plain crazy for some people to spend so much money on these things on ebay. Basically, if there are only a few hundred of these available out of an entire series, you can guess that they're going to be worth at least a couple of thousand dollars - especially if it's still new in box.

Is it gambling or not? It depends on your definition of the term "gambling". Any collectibles that are purchased in hopes that they will increase in value over time as a result of their popularity should be considered investment, not gambling. But at the same time, it's a gamble that could very well pay off for you if you can find the right cards. In the end, I believe it all depends on how much risk you want to take. Speculating on collectibles has its merits and can result in significant gains, but it also comes with the possibility of losing your initial investment.

It is definitely a type of gambling, just a very inefficient and potentially kind of boring way to do it. However to figure out if it is worthwhile you could probably do a lot of analysis on the numbers to determine probabilities and break even points. However you never know if every single deck you happened to buy was filled with lower quality cards, there are much easier ways to turn a profit from your money. However you have to think of it a different way as well - some people have built a whole youtube channel out of doing these type of projects and it could be more profitable in the long run if a series of Youtube videos was able to pay a reasonable sum over time in advertising revenue.

If I just knew that the value of those cards will grow up in the future then I'd be able to keep most of those cards, Yugi-oh and pokemon cards. But, when I was a kid, I was just throwing them off and not handling them with care because there's no such value at all. It's unreal to see it but that's the actual thing that's valuable this day. Maybe if my parents were into it, I'll be able to have it until now but not that they're trendy and against me playing those cards. IIRC, with $2 before on that year or earlier or later, that's already a lot of good and authentic cards back then.
Now, it costs a lot of money and that's likely an entire savings of a working person.

Yes, i do remember those childhood days where these cards could be bought cheap and just flipping it around and throw them afterwards and i didnt expect that theses yugi-oh cards are really having that good value

as of these years.No one really expected that and even myself cant really just believed on what i do saw into those video, which those cards had been pulled out and those rare finds
do end up cost 100$+ per card.

This isnt consider gambling though since there are people who do buy off these things for their leisure and collections.

Yeah, no one expected that there will be a significant value in the future but thanks to the collectors that could be of the same age and generation as we do because they're the ones that have given value to these cards.
And there's even an authentication/authenticator for those cards today that adds more value. The person that I like most with these cards collection is the one that I've seen on Pawnstars, named Gary. The pokemon cards collector has probably around $1M in value of his collections to this date or CMIIW if I have exaggerated that. But that's what I remember from the recent video interview that I watched him this year.

I can and will consider this as gambling, all the elements are all here, betting, investing in a form of betting, expectation, being entertained, and leveling up one's account, if you treat gambling as a form of entertainment and you also do in gaming if you think that you will make profit from betting and by leveling your account you can sell it and make money then we can consider it as both gamblings, the word and element of gambling cannot only be found in gambling sites, there's also gambling investing in Cryptocurrency.

Cards become more expensive only because initially there is no "fair" distribution of cards in sets (boxes) - the rarest cards obviously become more expensive. I think the governments still haven't equated this with gambling just because of the precedents - as soon as this issue goes beyond that niche, then these magic boxes will be regulated in the same way as loot boxes.


Those who sell loot boxes have long tried to avoid regulation using these tricks (the loot box is never empty - the buyer always gets something), but it did not help.

No this is definitely not gambling to me. Its more like a trade to me because if I get the lucky card then the most obvious thing I would do is sell it and get the money.
If I was a collectible holder then I would put it in my collectibles but otherwise just sell it and get the money.
So basically you are buying something and selling it and that comes under trading doesn't it.

For me, it depends on the buyer as it could be on the gambling side if he's planning to get his money back after opening all of them since opening packs used to be a trend back then. I remember there are cases where the rare packs could be pre-opened.

I agree with you as well since I've watched others open packs before and sometimes it'd take a bunch of boxes to get a rare card and they still have to get it graded to really know the actual price range of that said rare card.

Just to be sure you're lucky means you're into gambling? I don't think so, there are other things out there that wanted some good luck yet it isn't gambling at all, and it's the same for this collectibles I guess. You just bought it either to collect it or check if you can sold it at a higher price to some other collectors of trading cards.

It's just the same as buying mystery boxes where buyers risk their funds in exchange for valuable items though there's still no assurance that they could really get higher values items more than what they paid for. This isn't gambling because they are still getting items and cards as collectibles and they can still sell them in certain amounts. They must be risk takers but the risk is different in gambling. Maybe we can just consider it an exciting and surprising way to collect cards or items.
In gambling, there's a higher chance of losing your funds without gaining any profit and you can't chase them back. You won't get any item that will still satisfy you at some point.

in my opinion it is just like a collection and not a gambling game, because gambling must have something called the advantages and disadvantages of each game, after all it is just a collection card that rarely people have the same hobby to have it and not many people buy it because according to i'm a very expensive hobby it's better to spend money to gamble at the casino

This reminded me of my younger years collecting NBA cards.  :D
I don't recall telling myself it was a gamble before. It's a hobby and you tend to spend a lot of money on it because you like what you are doing.
The cards that I aim before are Grant Hill, Michael Jordan, and Anfernee Hardaway. If I get them I will be one of the happiest kids but not because I can sell them for lots of money but because I can boast them with my friends.
It's a rare thing especially when the card doesn't have a white margin on the sides and corners.
IMO, it depends on what's your purpose for buying Pandora's box.

Sometimes the value of one item can increase not because of its age but because of its rarity and if there's only a limited copy of it. Maybe the one you saw before are not original cards, that is why it's value is only cheap but fake cards does not matter for a kid that only wants to play the game.

It only matters the most from those who collect it and those who buy and sell it for a much expensive price. Those people know how to identify an authentic card from the fake ones. For someone who don't mind if what cards they will get inside the box and will actually value all the cards then it's not gambling but I think they will find cheaper alternatives.

You're right, we still have items even though we bought Pandora's box and don't know what's inside. this is purely just a pandora's box of mystery that gives a surprise. Items obtained are rare or just ordinary items. it would be well worth it and they the card makers made this card trading system work between collectors and each other and created an item that is indeed rare and is no longer in production.

I assume all this happened because Yu-gi-oh and pokemon became pop culture hits and nobody expected them to be so successful back in the day.
There are also other franchises and anime series which have their own Trading card games, those are not so popular having less value in the collectible market as a consequence.


I mean, the card I mentioned I saw them around 2000, when I was a little child. Those boxes which are worth 45k$ today back then were quite common.
As time passed by and those boxes started to get opened or lost (also with the popularity of Yu gi oh) the price started to increase very quick.

Nonetheless, you have a fair point tho. If one is a collector one needs to be very careful with counterfeits, since the first editions were printed during the early days of their franchises it is likely the material and anti-counterfeit measures of the cards back then were not as good as the card printed today, making it easier for the criminals to counterfeit...

Nope.

Because you get a physical item meanwhile in-gamble you're gonna to get (Odds) you're gonna receive or nothing. If you get the physical item, is not gamble the different only the item you are get have some value.

As for me, no, this is far from gambling because a person is receiving collectibles in exchange for his payment. He is like buying stuff with the possibility of getting better items that cost higher. In gambling, you are hoping to gain profit and you risk your funds but you can lose all of it without getting anything in return. They have similarities when it comes to risk since both require capital and funds but the results and rewards are different.