Do you think this is gambling? [Collectibles & Gambling]

[Mahanton]

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.

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.

[Vaskiy]

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.

[serjent05]

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.

[uneng]

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 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.

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.

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.

[Yogee]

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.

[ChiBitCTy]

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.

[harizen]

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?

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 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.

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

[blockman]

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.

[Hispo]

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.  

[Marvelman]

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.

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.

[Fortify]

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.

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.

[blockman]

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.

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.

[dunfida]

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.

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.

[blockman]

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.

[robelneo]

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.

[Boristhecat]

In fact, this is no different from loot boxes, and in many countries they are recognized as a form of gambling.

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.

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.

I see no reason why these collectibles/boxes cannot be considered gambling.

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.

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.

[pawanjain]

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.

[ralle14]

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.

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.

[rhomelmabini]

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.

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.

[virasisog]

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.