GameStop, the American gaming merchandise retailer that seems more interested in doing anything other than selling video games, has announced that it plans to expand its digital Power Packs program and offer its Pokémon TCG gambling service to the “general public” on April 15. As of this writing, the only people who seem excited about this news are the NFT and crypto bros on X.
The announcement was made through GameStop’s X account earlier today, which stated that GameStop “today announced Power Packs, its digital trading card platform, is launching to the general public beginning on April 15, 2026…” Although the statement says the service will be available to the “general public,” I’d wager that the Power Packs program will still only be available within the United States.
GameStop launches Power Packs on April 15, 2026. pic.twitter.com/aRiKRJFirI
— GameStop (@gamestop) April 14, 2026
If you’re unfamiliar with GameStop’s Power Packs service, it first launched back in early 2025 as a physical product, following the announcement of GameStop’s collaboration with trading card authenticator company PSA. In July 2025, GameStop announced that a digital version of Power Packs would be launching in beta, allowing gamblers—er, sorry, purchasers—to spin the wheel on six different tiers of PSA-graded cards, ranging from a $25 “Starter” tier all the way up to a $2,500 “Lunar” tier.
Through its partnership with PSA, these Power Pack cards could then be either shipped to customers or sold back to GameStop through the PSA Vault. The values of the cards contained within vary wildly, although exactly how wildly is difficult to verify.
GameStop is pretty keen to advertise that a $2,500 Lunar pack has a chance of giving you a PSA 10 graded Celebi #145 from the Pokémon Skyridge TCG set, worth an estimated $31,332, but there’s very little info on the cards available at the lower end. However, the Power Packs website does state that you only have a combined 29.4 percent chance to win a card worth more than $2,500, so at least they’re transparent about how terrible your odds are to break even.
As someone who (unfortunately) collects Pokémon TCG cards, I want to preface what I’m about to say by stating that, yes, I’m well aware that opening Pokémon packs is just gambling run through a Cocomelon filter. But the Pokémon Company doesn’t offer a way to throw away $2,500 with the click of a button, and the cards within packs can at least be used to, y’know, play the actual trading card game. After all, I’m pretty sure a plastic PSA slab isn’t tournament legal.
And hey, while giving a bunch of my money to The Pokémon Company admittedly fuels a brand that’s estimated to be worth somewhere around $140 billion, I can still justify that a little more easily than I can giving my money directly to the NFT- and crypto-fueled nightmare that is GameStop, Inc.
