Pokemon TCG Gambling App Tops App Store Charts

A Pokemon TCG Gambling App Just Topped The iPhone Game Charts Published Oct 8, 2026, 5:43 AM EDT Sam Woods is TheGamer’s Senior Reporter. He’s been in games journalism since 2020 and has undertaken a variety of roles in that time. These have included roles such as SEO Editor, Managing Editor at DualShockers, and Global Head of Gaming, and he's also been seen on the BBC. He was promoted to the Senior Reporter position in 2025 following a series of high-quality reports and exclusives for TheGamer. Since 2020, Sam has written over 3,000 articles and specializes in telling the stories of the people behind the games. He’s interviewed the biggest game directors, some of the industry’s top talents, told the stories of how indie games came to be, and spoken to players about what really makes them tick. He’s also interviewed some of the world’s biggest musical artists to find out how the medium has inspired their work, and TV and Film actors about their roles in video game adaptations. He even hosted a PAX panel in 2021 and made a documentary in 2024 surrounding the creation of a Disney game. Alongside this, Sam focuses on breaking news. He got the scoop on Perfect Dark’s cancellation, provided context on some AI drama, and revealed that Lady Dimitrescu’s actress would love to step back into the character’s giant shoes. These articles have been picked up by the biggest gaming sites, including IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer. He also loves to dive into the numbers behind the games. Sam’s journey in games journalism has taken him all over the world. He’s covered Gamescom in Germany, Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, each on three occasions. He’s been learning Japanese since 2024 with the intention of identifying and translating Japanese-language news and bringing it to English-language audiences first, something he’s done countless times. Sam’s first review was 2020’s Battletoads reboot, and he’s since reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Pokemon franchises. For some people, the Pokemon Trading Card Game is a big money business. I've been covering it for a few years now, but everything TCG-related is being scalped, selling out instantly, and is immediately relisted on the secondary market for obscene amounts of cash. This has driven individual card prices to record highs. Things have been taken to the next level with the rise of gambling sites that offer players the chance to pay real money for a minute chance of hitting a big chase card. GameStop's Power Packs, which could be illegal under certain laws, are one example of this, and other sites, like Total Cards and Packz do similar. While regulation remains unchecked, one of these gambling apps has skyrocketed its way up the iPhone App Store, hitting the number one spot in the charts— weirdly in the gaming section. A Pokemon TCG Gambling App Is Now Topping The iPhone's Gaming Charts, Showing The Dire State Of The Card Game Crown Cards, as first noted by Kanto Post, currently sits atop the iPhone App Store's gaming charts. It offers players the chance to "pull genuine trading cards from your phone" and describes itself as a "digital pack-opening experience built around real collectibles." Functionally, it is gambling. It advertises real card packs "valued up to $100,000", but the chances of winning these are extremely slim, and require a high outlay, preying on those with an addictive personality. Packs start at as little as $1, offering a 0.6 percent chance to win a card between $4 and $20 and can get as expensive as $5,000, with odds of 2.3 percent to win a $9,500 to $100,000 card — notice the huge disparity in prize value. We put $10 into the app for science, and it's clear just how addictive it can get for people who are that way inclined. Our first $10 pack yielded an $8 card, which we could sell and use to buy a lower-value pack. We did, and our money kept tumbling. Eventually, it grew again, and we pulled a $20 card. We quickly sold it and used the profits, plus what we had left over, to open a $25 pack. Eventually, our pot fell to $0. The pack carousel is similar to the one in Pokemon TCG Pocket, and it's almost scary how easy it is to spend money on Crown Cards. It offers occasional big wins to keep hope alive, then drains your account. It's textbook gambling. There have been calls for regulation on this type of service, and some have deemed it to be illegal gambling, but it still remains, and while it does, people will surely lose a lot of money. Franchise Pokemon Original Release Date October 20, 1996 Player Count 2 Age Recommendation 6+ Length per Game Variable Franchise Name Pokemon