Fairness

Three things you should be able to check.

We make three claims about how this works. Here’s what each one means, and how you’d catch us if it weren’t true.

The cards

The cards already exist before you open anything.

Every card in a pack’s pool is a physical card we’ve already bought and checked in. Nothing is generated at the moment you open.

Each one is graded and sealed before it joins a pool, then it sits in storage until you sell it back or ask us to ship it.

So a pack can only hold what’s actually on the shelf. When a card leaves the pool, the pack’s page changes to match.

Grading: An independent grader inspects the card, scores its condition, and seals it in a tamper-proof case with a certification number.
Storage: An access-controlled facility where the cards sit while they belong to you.

Pokémon Illustrator1998 POKEMON COROCORO PROMO · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038477
Charizard1999 POKEMON BASE SET · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038472
Umbreon ★2007 POKEMON POP SERIES 5 · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038481
Charizard2003 POKEMON SKYRIDGE · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038480
Venusaur1999 POKEMON BASE SET · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038474
Mewtwo1999 POKEMON BASE SET · GEM-MT 10Cert 091038475

The odds

The odds are on the page before you pay.

Each pack lists its pool and the chance of pulling every card in it. Odds of X% mean that card comes up X% of the time over a lot of openings. It doesn’t mean it’s due after a bad run.

The odds are the same for everyone. They don’t shift based on what you pulled last time or how much you’ve spent.

If a pool’s odds change, it’s because the pool changed. You’ll see the new numbers before your next opening, never during one.

Pool: The full list of cards a pack can give you. Nothing is held back off the list.
Chance: How often a card comes up over many openings, not a promise about your next one.

The draw

The terms are locked before the deciding number exists.

When you pay, we lock everything that could change your result: the exact cards in the pool, the chance attached to each, the prices those chances were worked out from, and a value that comes from your side. Locking it means publishing a short code worked out from all four. Change any of them afterwards and the code stops matching.

The number that decides your card is requested after that lock, and the request carries the lock with it. That is the part worth watching: the number can’t be picked to suit a pool and a price list that were already fixed and published.

Once the pack is open we publish the number and the locked terms it was bound to. Run them through the same steps we ran and you land on the card you were dealt. Land on a different card and the draw was not the one we described.

Locked terms: The pool, the chances, the prices and your own value, fixed at the moment you pay and published as a short code.
Deciding number: The number requested after that lock, which picks your card out of the pool.

The limit

What a check proves, and what it doesn’t.

A check that passes proves one thing: the card you got is the card the locked terms and the deciding number produce together. Nobody had to trust us to work that out, which is the whole point of publishing it.

It proves nothing about whether the deal was good. We set the pool and we set the chances, and we set them so that packs bring in more than the cards they give out. That gap is how the company earns.

So verification tells you we followed our own published rules. Whether those rules suit you is a separate question, and the rate table is where you answer it.

The obvious question

Can you rig it?

Can you change my result after I open the pack?

No. The code we published matches exactly one set of terms and one number. Change either and it stops matching, and anyone holding the published code can see that.

Can you decide in advance what a specific person gets?

Your own value is part of what gets locked in when you pay, so yes, we know it. But the deciding number is only requested after that lock, and it’s bound to it: that order is what stops a number being chosen to suit what we already know you bought.

Do the odds quietly get worse the more I open?

No. Odds belong to the pack, not to your account. Two people opening the same pack see the same numbers.

Do I have to check any of this myself?

No, and most people won’t. It’s there so that anyone who wants to check can, instead of taking our word for it.

What if the check doesn’t match?

That’s exactly what the published code is built to catch. Send the draw you checked to the address on the contact page, and we’ll re-run our numbers against yours in the open until we find where they diverge.

Open one yourself.

The pool, the odds and the card you end up holding all live in the app. Sign in to have a look — nothing is on sale yet.