What happened to Pokemon TCG? Why are there scalpers?

What happened to Pokemon TCG? Why are there scalpers?
Photo by Thimo Pedersen / Unsplash

What are Pokemon Scalpers?

If you don't know by now, Pokemon TCG scalpers are basically people who mass purchase Pokemon cards and their bundle boxes and the like, then resell them into insane markup prices.

Like its absolute insanity the margins they get from reselling these types of products.

@clipthemarkets

How much money do scalpers make? #fyp #pokemon #pokemoncards #onepiece #charizard

♬ Stargazing (Slowed) - Marcelo De Carvalho

Check this video out, despite it being a year ago, these types of behavior still exists.

Normally I wouldn't give a crap about this nonsense, I mean who would even buy a card (just one card) that is worth over $10, aside from very niche collectors yea? But nah, check this 2 videos out (less than 20 seconds each video).

Are you kidding me?! What self respecting adult would ever do this? What a bunch of low-life parasites.

I mean MeatCanyon made an animation about this disgusting behavior, I thought they were just being over-the-top just like their other animations, but oh my goodness, this is literally how some scalpers acts, grown man in their 20's or 30's, trying to hold a monopoly of a kids card game in order for them to resell it in ridiculous prices.


So Why the Rampant Amount of Scalpers?

My guess is that at some point the Nike sneaker scalpers transitioned to hoarding Pokemon Cards and reselling them with insane prices.

Why? Who the hell knows for sure? But it's probably because of the news where an old japanese pokemon card was sold for nearly $200,000 in 2019.

One of the rarest Pokémon cards ever made just sold for nearly $200,000
Pikachu Illustrator is one of rarest Pokémon cards in the world, and it was sold at auction for $195,000.

Will scalpers ever stop plaguing the Pokemon TCG market? No probably not, because of crap like these going around the news:

Logan Paul Buys Rare Pokemon Card for $150,000
YouTuber Logan Paul spent $150,000 on a very rare Pokemon card: a First-Edition, PSA 10, Shadowless Charizard card! The card was sold by “Pawn Stars Gary,” a famous collector of Pokemon cards that has previously appeared on the History Channel series. Paul, who has spent quite a bit of money collecting Pokemon cards over the […]

From 2020

Logan Paul’s ‘holy grail’ of Pokémon cards sells for $16.5 million, with a diamond necklace thrown in | CNN
Five years ago, Logan Paul set a world record when he purchased a Pokémon card for $5.275 million. It proved a sound investment; the influencer and wrestler sold that card for a jaw-dropping $16.492 million, with a diamond encrusted necklace thrown in.

From 2026


Final Words

It is absolutely insane what these mentally-deficient adults (scalpers) are willing to do for money, if they could, I'm willing to bet that they would even sacrifice the souls of children for literal scraps.

TLDR: Scalpers sucks. And I hope Nintendo, GameFreak, or Whoever has influence of the Pokemon TCG market can help fix this.


Copyright ©2026 by Marshall Vulta