May 15, 2026
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story suggested GameStop was selling presorted Pokémon packs for $5,000, which is not the case. The story has been updated accordingly to focus on Power Packs.
Ebay might have rejected (1) GameStop's (NYSE: GME) takeover bid, but the meme stock retailer is still moving ahead with its somewhat unusual revenue-gathering strategies. The company is riding the wave of Pokémon hysteria, selling digital packs containing a single graded card for as much as $5,000 each.
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Buyers can instantly sell back any cards they want to GameStop at 90% of the card's fair market value, minus a 6% selling fee (2). (They can also choose to sell them via Ebay or other methods, likely earning more, but those will take longer for them to receive the funds.)
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If you're doing the math at home, GameStop's own published odds say there's a 72% chance the card you pull is worth less than the $5,000 you paid — buyers who take the instant buyback get 90% of the card's value minus a 6% fee, meaning a card listed at $4,000 nets them about $3,360.
The pull is randomized within bands the house sets, meaning the math runs the same direction it does in Vegas. But that's not stopping some collectors from rolling the dice.
Significant rewards, despite the math
There are six tiers of digital Power Packs, ranging from $25 to $5,000. Each tier draws from a different pool of PSA-graded cards, and GameStop publishes the odds that your card will fall within certain value ranges. Higher tiers have better odds of high-value cards but don't guarantee them — at the $25 Starter level, you could end up with a card worth far less than you paid. (3).
The more you pay, the better the chances that your pack will contain a high-level card, the company says.
Prices start as low as $25 and, until recently, were capped at $2,500. But after announcing the Ebay bid, GameStop began offering a $5,000 “Neutronium” option.
The rewards are significant. Among the cards GameStop says are hidden (4) in the packs are a 1999 Charizard-Holo, valued at more than $68,000; a Mewtwo-Holo from 2006, worth nearly $61,000; and a Vaporeon 2007 Holo card, worth over $60,000.
GameStop puts odds of hitting the jackpot tail — a card worth more than $40,000 — at 0.4%.
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Hit-to-miss ratio
GameStop has been actively promoting the program through its official Power Packs account and sponsored creators. On May 9, Roaring Sensei — a paid GameStop ambassador who streams Power Pack openings on YouTube, Twitch, and X — opened 60 packs from mixed tiers over several hours in a sponsored broadcast (5).
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The biggest pull of the day was a Rayquaza worth roughly $7,000 from the Neutronium pack (the highest $5,000 tier), but the vast majority of cards drawn were under $100.
Sustained demand
Pokémon cards have never seen their popularity dim, but they've become almost an analog equivalent of Bitcoin lately. Earlier this year, influencer Logan Paul sold his PSA 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon trading card for nearly $16.5 million (6), a record amount. (Paul paid $5.27 million for the card in 2021.)
While the trading card industry, as a whole, has seen price run-ups in the past few years, Pokémon is far and away the industry leader. As of last July, the value of those cards has increased 3,261% (7) in the past 20 years, far surpassing the S&P 500 and most other investment vehicles.
In the 12 months prior to that, the average Pokémon card saw a 46% increase in value.
People are making some extreme trades for the cards too. One collector recently swapped his six-figure Audi R8 supercar for a collection of cards that he valued at over $130,000.
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
The Wall Street Journal (1); GameStop (2), (3),(4); YouTube (5); CNN (6); Fortune (7)
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Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience at many of the internet's biggest news outlets. In addition to his activities as a writer, reporter and editor, Chris is also a frequent panel moderator and speaker at major conferences, including CES and South by Southwest.
