Trading cards have evolved dramatically over the past generation. What began as children trading baseball cards on playgrounds has evolved into a more creative and decidedly organized practice with collectors pooling their money to purchase an unopened box, pack, or case of cards — and then divvying up the cards according to teams or players individuals in the group picked ahead of time.
Just as fantasy leagues transformed fan interaction … card breaking has given new life to an old hobby.
Apart from saving money, the practice, known as card breaking, has become a social affair that brings people together in an online age to share the simple pleasure of opening a box of cards. Whether it be sports cards, Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, etc., the box is opened publicly — often live-streamed.
At a time when it’s hard to get people to look up from screens, even when they’re all in the same room together, there’s a bubble gum and marble-shooting innocence to it.
But that evolution has brought its own share of controversy. Some critics call card breaking “gambling,” likening it to casino slot machines. In fact, some states and organizations have called for regulation of the practice, arguing that its legal gray area leaves consumers vulnerable to abuse. But the comparison to gambling is simply wrong.
Gambling is a game of pure chance in which bettors risk money — and unlike in Ocean’s 11, they almost always lose — but in card breaking, participants are reserving a guaranteed spot in the allocation of an actual product: specific team cards or player cards, that is.
Consequently, the excitement in card breaking is not over the prospect of winning or losing money. It’s about discovering what cards exactly are contained in the sealed packs or boxes, as my fellow columnist Derek Hunter recently described.
Imagine, for example, a buyer who reserves the Kansas City Chiefs’ spot in a football card break. That buyer’s anticipation builds around whether he or she will draw the card of, say, a likely future Hall of Famer like Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce. But the buyer need not worry about walking away empty-handed, like a gambler at a blackjack table would.
This is why card breaking is much closer to the experience of owning a Costco membership than to a night at the poker table at MGM Grand. Just as a warehouse club guarantees members access to products at discounted prices, card breaking gives collectors access to boxes of trading cards that can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. In short, it allows people to share both the high cost of cards and the thrill of a hobby that can otherwise feel a little isolating.
There is no overstating how much card breaking fosters a sense of community, especially at a time when the internet has replaced many meaningful in-person gatherings with fleeting and sometimes shallow connections. Collectors don’t just come together to buy cards — they celebrate one another’s wins, commiserate over their disappointments, and occasionally even make trades right on the spot.
Critics sometimes point to the fluctuations in card values as proof that individuals are essentially betting on a future price spike. But that’s a complete stretch. Collectors of any objects — comic books, vinyl records, stamps, watches, rare sneakers — understand that markets frequently fluctuate and are inherently unpredictable. Take rare coins, for example: a shift in commodity markets can raise or lower a coin’s baseline value overnight. This is not peculiar to card collecting. It’s simply the nature of collecting.
As for a legal assessment of card breaking, all you need to do is apply common sense. Any bettor who has lost money at the roulette table knows exactly why: the outcome was never certain to begin with. But by reserving a guaranteed spot in a card-breaking gathering, a person secures the right to receive cards — not just a random chance to obtain them.
To criticize card breaking as gambling misses a much larger cultural story: the evolution of hobbies from generation to generation, particularly with the advent of technology. Just as fantasy leagues transformed fan interaction from passive viewing into active participation, card breaking has given new life to an old hobby. The criticism also obscures the opportunity that the practice offers to draw more people into the world of collecting and foster a greater sense of community in the process.
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