Pokémon For Profit: Scalpers And “Investors” Are Killing The Pokémon TCG

At this point, anyone familiar with the world-dominating franchise Pokémon has likely also at least heard of the Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG), or more commonly just ‘Pokémon cards’. The collectible, tradable and playable card game has made shockwaves across the collectibles industry, rapidly rising in recent years to new heights of demand.

For Pokémon fans, the TCG has always been a bunch of fun. I’ve liked the franchise since I was a kid, and still remember spending hours with my eldest sister as we’d open cards, organize them in tins and even rarely actually play the game. Generation 4 was always a favorite, and it was a great experience being able to get cards from the Diamond & Pearl, Platinum and Heartgold Soulsilver sets easily on store shelves. That’s not the experience kids today will find though. Like most hobbies in recent years, there’s a surge of people seeking to get in and make a quick buck – of course, I’m talking about the scalpers.

Scalping is the process of buying things up, with the intention of reselling for a quick (or large) profit. The term became popular in the ticketing industry, but has broadened to include anything of value that can get bought up and resold, from video game systems and figurines to shoes and CDs. Collectibles are a prime target for scalping, especially things that have a limited number of prints or copies made – and even more so if they’re popular, like the biggest media franchise of all time: Pokémon.

A lot of people hold the Pokémon brand in high regard, as it meant so much to us growing up. Unlike some other aging series, Pokémon continues to be popular amongst new generations of children across the world. This means that the audience for the franchise is only continuing to grow, putting a big ‘scalp me’ spotlight over all things Pokémon that may be limited. That brings us to the latest controversy in the Pokémon TCG space, where scalping appears to have reached a critical mass.

Pokémon loves to celebrate, whether it’s an anniversary event or just a big blowout to put a highlight on a specific Pokémon, and the year of 2025 has been designated as the year of Eevee. Throughout the year, the official Pokémon Center store will be releasing Eevee and its evolutions (known as Eeveelutions) merchandise, plush toys, homeware and more. Yes, that includes a TCG set.

Pokémon Scarlet & Violet: Prismatic Evolutions is a new set of cards that highlights the Eeveelutions in all their glory, with cards to find both common and rare featuring artwork of all forms of Eevee. This is a special set, meaning that packs of it can only be purchased in bundled products, such as Elite Trainer Boxes (ETBs) which offer nine packs with TCG accessories, sticker collections which feature three packs and a big sticker of an Eeveelution, and so on. This differs from conventional “main” sets, which can be purchased from retailers as individual packs, or bought in bunches of 18 or 36 too.

Prismatic Evolutions was meant to be a fun set, especially for kids who love the colorful appeal of the Eeveelutions, but the scalpers were ready too. You see, Eevee is also hugely popular with older Pokémon fans, as it’s a standout Pokémon from the first generation of the series. There was already a giant scalping issue with the latest Generation 1 themed set (named ‘151’), so it was known almost as soon as it was announced that Prismatic Evolutions would be difficult to obtain, but the degree to which stocks were scooped up was still unprecedented.

Almost every Prismatic Evolutions product is sold out with every retailer, but a quick search on eBay, Amazon or other reselling markets yields thousands of results, as Prismatic Evolutions products are resold and exchanged between scalpers for over double the recommended retail price, and far outside most children or casual adult fan’s budgets. It’s shameful the amount these products are being sold for, and shocking that some people are actually buying them. Whilst we’re sure some that purchase scalped goods are genuine fans just desperate to be part of the fun, there’s an even murkier element at play in the market.

Some people shun the term ‘scalper’, and instead opt to refer to themselves as ‘investors’. These alleged “investors” in the Pokémon TCG will buy from other fellow businessmen (scalpers), to reduce the number of options available on the market and amass a monopoly on a product for themselves. As the products become rarer over time, Prismatic Evolutions is a limited time set after all, this will leave a few wealthy individuals with masses of TCG products to sell off in future at hugely inflated prices – meanwhile the year of Eevee will be celebrated by most children fans with whatever’s left on store shelves from other, less special sets.

The plague that is scalpers and “investors” on the Pokémon TCG isn’t just an annoyance, it’s outright harmful. Fights have broken out on toy aisles across the USA as grown adults scrap over who can get the most cardboard toys intended for children to resell online for extra cash. Small independent businesses have opted to not sell Prismatic Evolutions due to actual threats received from soulless scalpers demanding their stock. The attitude amongst the casual Pokémon TCG fanbase towards the state of collecting has never been more dire, as even the next mainline set Journey Together, which will not be a limited celebratory set, becomes difficult to obtain as “investors” and scalpers grow their empires.

This is meant to be a fun experience – Pokémon cards were designed to trade on the playground, not be valued, tracked and traded on a stock market. It’s infuriating as someone who was once a child with so many memories of special Pokémon card sets and events to see them get corrupted by greed. It’s a problem that we thought had peaked with the 151 limited edition set, but only continues to grow across Prismatic Evolutions and promises to also cause problems for those interested in the next set too. Something needs to be done to protect the future of the hobby, and to prevent those with the means of buying in bulk from exploiting others with less, especially in a time and economy like this.

So what’s the solution? It’s hard to say exactly, as scalping is so lucrative to those that indulge in it that it’s difficult to wait for it to naturally end. Even if a less “exciting” TCG set comes along, the scalpers won’t be far behind waiting for the next hyped release. It seems obvious, but the easiest way to defeat the issue would be to remove it at the root, and to stop buying from scalpers. Giving money to those that see these beautiful, colorful cards as nothing more than stocks to be sold on a market is what got us into this problem, and it would also be the way out. It hurts to miss out on an exciting set of cards in a franchise we love, but to me it hurts more to give money to those that intentionally exploit that for wealth. This is especially true if a set has confirmed restocks incoming, as in exchange for your patience you’ll get another chance at grabbing the cards, and be ruining a scalper’s day!

Restocks are also the key to how The Pokémon Company themselves can act on the scourge of scalping; adding more supply to rising demand will eventually create equilibrium. I’m sure that Pokémon themselves want to do something about scalpers, as these resold boxes going at insane prices don’t profit them in any way, and could’ve instead been a legitimate full-price purchase made direct to them through their stores or designated retailers.

Speaking of retailers, they too can act to prevent the degradation of the Pokémon TCG. On special in-demand sets like Prismatic Evolutions, purchase limits are doing wonders to combat scalpers from reselling items. If everyone entering the store can only buy two of a certain product, what could have been one person buying ten boxes gets cut to minimum five people buying two, greatly increasing the odds that actual fans get hold of their collectibles. Of course, this restriction should be a rational one that changes based on the set and landscape – most people will want to buy more than 1-2 packs of a mass-produced set at a time, but nobody should be buying 10+ on a limited premium product for example.

All considered, it’s quite ironic that whilst in some ways the Pokémon TCG has never been better, being a fan of it has never been harder. The TCG has record-high profits, a booming competitive scene, stunning artworks in abundance, new gimmicks and card types that allow people to collect in ways they never could before and more – it’s just difficult to actually get your hands on some of the cards.

As an individual, the best thing we can do now is to persist. The wave of scalping and “investment” in the Pokémon TCG is far from over, but we can still find cards to enjoy. Dip into under-appreciated and higher stocked sets and find some hidden gem cards, ignore resale offers from scalpers, build a relationship with your local card store and the other fans you’ll find as customers to stay up to date on anticipated restocks, and remember where your passion for Pokémon came from in the first place.

Just like Team Rocket with their dastardly plans to buy and sell Pokémon that they’ve stolen from their beloved trainers, we too will have scalpers “blasting off again” once they lose interest in our hobby. Whether that comes through restocks from up high, effective purchase limitations being adopted en masse by retailers, or just being ignored by the legitimate fans, they won’t win in the end – but they sure are putting up a fight.