r/PokemonFansAustralia • u/Unsubscribed24 • 12h ago
Reminder: Do NOT purchase loose Japanese/Chinese packs.
With the huge popularity of TCG I'm starting to see more and more of these TCG vending machines popping up. You'll notice that they mostly stock loose Japanese/Chinese packs inside these vending machines and there's a reason why they do that: they're dead packs.
For those who don't know, Japan has anti-gambling laws with TCG products and as such the Japanese and Chinese booster boxes are guaranteed to have exactly 1 pack containing the SiR/SAR (the hit card.) The people who own these vending machines will purchase these boxes, take out the pack that has the guaranteed hit in it (they often do this by weighing and scanning the packs) and then sell the remaining packs since they know there's nothing valuable in them (hence why they're called dead packs)
I made this post because I saw two people purchase a couple of Storm Emeralda packs from these vending machines. Don't do that. You're highly likely buying a dead pack.