TCG expert reveals how gacha gambling companies are secretly propping up the entire card market with briefcases of cash
"One of these buyers from these websites pulled up to us with an empty cardboard box and said I'm going to be here for a while. He starts collecting cards from all ranges, not just high end stuff. He'll select a card that's $4,000 then go down to cards that are $80 because they need a good distribution for repacking on their website."
"He's scanning our cards and telling us you guys are underpricing these. I'm going to pay you market. We said it's okay you can just pay our sticker. He said no that's not how I do business. I like to develop a relationship with my sellers so you can keep selling to me. So I'm going to pay you 100% of the market price even if you have it stickered lower. Me and my boy are looking at each other like is this guy for real right now."
"He finishes. It's a stack this big of slabs. He says come on over to the bank. Which was what he called his booth. Guy has a pelican briefcase full of cash with a money counter. Counts it all up. Here you go, good doing business. It was $14,000. And these weren't cards that were in demand. These were bricks. They were not going to move. And this guy just came and swept us. His budget for that single show was $650,000 of cash that he HAD to spend. Think about what that's doing to the market."