The cost to produce one is almost $0
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Yo those parachute army men were one of my favorite toys when I was a kid 
Get a couple throws out of them before the strings got all tangled 
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Isnât this what a booster pack is? Thereâs a chance at a chase card (or subset of chase cards) but you are very unlikely to get it.
I guess you mean a mystery box could just contain a booster pack itself?
Which one? I would say that both have similarly low cost to produce compared to cost to purchase.
Overall I guess my point is, is it ever not a ripoff to gamble? The house is always going to win in the long run, or else theyâre just losing money.
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A mystery box has the products sourced from the secondary market. Which means thereâs a non-trivial cost to build one and in order for it to make sense long term it needs to be profitable. Meaning the expected value of the box has to be below the cost of the items, otherwise you are setting up a casino that gives away money.
Booster packs cost virtually nothing to individually produce at the scale pokemon prints. Therefore there is no EV required from the product. In fact, the parameters of the booster pack determine the secondary market value, not the other way around.
Iâm not a fan at all of the culture created by booster packs. But to say itâs the same as a mystery box ignores a lot of the nuance. What makes mystery boxes a âripoffâ is that you are basically always better off not buying one and buying an item you want instead. That is often true for booster packs (at the secondary market value!) but booster packs are the primary source of the product. Itâs the difference between drinking from the tip of the hose vs drinking the gargled hosewater that went into my mouth first.
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Mystery boxes and ship rips are two things that completely baffle me about the casual community at large. I seriously donât know why gambling has such a hold on our society now.
Mystery boxes are twofold, gambling within gambling; itâs ludicrous to me.
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Almost everything that seeks to entertain has a gambling element to it these days, so I canât say that I am shocked that a lot of folks buy mystery boxes. People love to gamble and fantasize about get-rich-quick schemes working out in their favor.
I donât have an issue with people gambling responsibly, but responsible gamblers are few and far between. It becomes somewhat problematic when children/teens are buyers of gambling/lottery products (e.g., TCGs, loot boxes, random drops, gacha video games, gacha products like labubu), as almost every state and jurisdiction in the U.S. has age restrictions (18-21) but these products are almost never classified as gambling/lottery.
My recommendation is to buy what you want. If you enjoy gambling, then do so responsibly and do everything in your power to retain insight into your behavior and spending pattern.
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Of course there are different types of mystery boxes: with or without plushy, sticker and other goodies, single booster, booster boxes, etc. I focus mainly on the booster types. (And of course I donât talk about Christmas fun events organized by fans and family.)
When I buy a regular product, normally I know which sets I will get. Mystery boxes many times try to make you excited for the sets you might get (evolving cries for example) and then you get only trick or treat or whatever. Also you canât be sure if the packs are weighed or not. Etc. I think it is enough, when the PokĂ©mon Company tricks me into buying packs with no value in it. I donât need a middleman in the game who wants to scam me additionally.
But enough negativity. I want to have fun with this hobby and not argue. I will not buy mystery boxes. Everyone else can have fun with it. I wish you all the best of luck. 
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When a person selling it loses money on it and each item contains minimum equal value to what was paid.
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If I remember correctly, these Japanese mystery packs were worth every penny. Thatâs definitely not the case anymore, and it probably wasnât the case with every seller back then either.
But it was a nice gamble, and youâd occasionally find cards you hadnât seen before. It was a lot of fun 
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I guess they werenât that exiting for Japanese customers. And since foreigners buy much more, the prices went up?
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I think a big portion was that a lot of the cool bulk that helped them be amazing was sold. I remember 2020 people talking how shops were selling through them because there were a lot of good condition japanese promos and premium cards in them.
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From the way I see it, mystery boxes are a scam in the way of value your never going to make the value back, but itâs just like opening emerging powers, you wonât make your money back but itâll be fun to open to see what you get.
That being said Iâd rather buy singles
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