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Earlier this year, we wrote about the explosive growth of the trading card market in the United States and how closely it resembles gambling. Since the COVID pandemic, collecting Pokémon cards, sports cards, and other collectibles has become a massive global trend. While there has always been an element of chance involved in opening sealed packs, soaring prices—particularly for vintage products—have transformed the hobby into something that increasingly resembles high-stakes gambling.
Card collecting itself is nothing new. People have been collecting cards for generations across the world. What has changed is the scale, the money involved, and the way the market now operates.
It appears this trend has now reached Europe in full force.
Just a few weeks ago, I attended iGB Live in London. Like many visitors, I took a walk down Oxford Street, where Fanatics has recently opened a flagship trading card store. Inside, I watched a young customer opening packs worth several thousand pounds in search of a single rare card. Around him were children eagerly buying packs alongside older collectors spending significant amounts of money.
There is nothing inherently wrong with collecting cards or opening packs. The issue begins once the hobby moves online.
The Pipeline from Collecting to Gambling
After developing an interest in trading cards, many people naturally turn to YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook to watch pack-opening videos. These creators attract millions of views by opening expensive boxes and chasing rare cards. For many viewers, this content is entertaining and completely harmless.
The problem is that many of these same creators also promote websites that function remarkably similarly to online casinos.
These platforms sell digital “repacks” or mystery boxes. Users deposit money, purchase a virtual box, and instantly reveal the card they have won. They can then choose to have the physical card shipped to them, keep it in a digital inventory, or sell it back to the platform for cash.
From a gambling perspective, the mechanics are strikingly familiar.
Users stake money on a random outcome, receive an immediate result, and can cash out the value. The only meaningful difference is that the prize is presented as a collectible rather than a traditional casino payout.
An Aggressive Advertising Ecosystem
What makes this even more interesting is how aggressively these platforms market themselves.
After consuming a significant amount of trading card content—as I deliberately did for research—the advertising became almost impossible to avoid. Ads appeared across YouTube, Facebook, and countless other websites.
The marketing closely resembles that of gambling operators. Platforms advertise potential value returns, compare the expected value of digital repacks with buying sealed trading card products, and rely heavily on popular content creators to build trust and credibility.
Limited Consumer Protection
Most of the platforms we reviewed appear to operate with an 18+ age restriction. While that acknowledges the adult nature of these products, it also raises an important question: if operators themselves recognise that these products are unsuitable for minors, should they also be subject to the same consumer protection and responsible gambling standards that apply to other gambling-like products?
Beyond age restrictions, many of these platforms appear to lack safeguards commonly associated with regulated gambling environments. There are often no deposit limits, affordability checks, self-exclusion tools, cooling-off periods, or independent regulatory oversight.
Given the similarities between these products and gambling, it seems reasonable to ask whether existing consumer protection frameworks are keeping pace with the way these products are evolving.
Regulators Have Barely Started the Conversation
Most gambling regulators have examined loot boxes and similar mechanics in video games. Digital trading card repacks, however, occupy a different space and have received far less attention.
In the United States, several commentators and legal experts have argued that these products deserve closer regulatory scrutiny. So far, however, little meaningful regulatory action has followed.
Meanwhile, much of Europe’s regulatory attention remains focused on prediction markets and other emerging gambling products.
That raises an important question:
Are regulators focused on the right risks, or is a new gambling-like vertical quietly establishing itself in plain sight?
