As the Pokémon TCG approaches two full years of ridiculous shortages, beginning with November 2024’s Surging Sparks and growing worse ever since, retail stores are looking for novel ways to try to cope with the crisis. We’ve seen the full gamut, with some chains looking to do their best to prevent scalping and others just turning into scalpers themselves, while The Pokémon Company International continues to flail and claim solutions are just over the horizon. The latest big name to attempt a new plan is Walmart, with the introduction of an online lottery system.
Lotteries for buying Pokémon cards are not a new concept, but they’re far more rarely seen in the U.S. than elsewhere. Japanese outlets have often used the system, including the Japanese version of Amazon, and such measures have been introduced in the official Pokémon Centers in the country. Now, as observed by Polygon, Walmart is adding a lottery system for those hoping to buy specific drops of Pokémon TCG products on its online store.
For reasons that probably have to do with obscure gambling law the outlet is calling this a “drawing,” which it says is to “give customers a chance to buy select high-demand items.” Rather than having to wait for restocks to appear on the site, and then discovering that scalpers and bots have bought everything before you can even get the page to load, from now on you’ll be able to place an order and then just hope and wait.
Luck of the draw
“Instead of relying on checkout speed,” says the site, “eligible entries are randomly selected after the drawing entry period closes.” You’ll need to have a Walmart account to take part, as it’s all tied to that, but no money is taken at the time of application. However, should you be randomly selected for successful capitalism, you will then be automatically charged and have your order processed. Everyone else will, according to the FAQ, just be left in perpetual disappointment—it doesn’t seem that you’ll even get an email letting you know you haven’t been selected.
In fact, if you “enter a drawing,” there’s no way to cancel ahead of the draw. The rules stipulate that “your entry can’t be canceled or changed,” which is quite something. You might hope that standard retail law will permit you to return the items afterward, but even this is in doubt. “Items purchased through a drawing may not be returnable. Drawing orders are subject to Walmart’s Return Policy.”
Still, this is a better system than those of GameStop and Target, which are just cutting out the middlemen and gouging the cards’ prices themselves. A better method employed by some Targets (and Japanese Pokémon Centers) is to rip open the packaging at the point of sale, as this makes it far harder for scalpers to resell the products, although it remains a bummer for collectors who want to own sealed products. Lotteries are hardly a solution, but they’re a more inherently fair system, given they at least equalize real customers and scalpers, and Walmart says it will remove suspicious-looking applications before making a draw.
The whole situation remains farcical, and is about to become so much worse with next month’s first release of the 30th Anniversary set. Hold on to your novelty Gengar hats.
