Introducing PSA's unregulated gambling, er, I mean PSA PowerPacks™

[inaka]

I'm surprised that there isn't a thread about this already here.
Looks like PSA just stole the unregulated gambling idea from Arena Club Slab Packs™ and PSA is prepping a launch of their own PowerPacks.

I got this email on Friday:



https://powerpacks.gamestop.com

I'm not a prude, but jeez, this looks exactly like Arena Club Slab Packs were it's a pure gambling scheme, where most lose and the house always wins, only this time PSA is doubling down on targeting kids with their partnership with GameStop. Argh.

Did anyone else get this? It looks like it's a beta program and I have no clue why I got this email. I'm not even a PSA member anymore.

If people ever wonder why there is so much focus on the negative things about the hobby, I mean, can you blame them? This is the "DraftKingsing" of the hobby in real time. Terrible.

[discodanman45]

Remember how ashamed they were when their name was on a vending machine. Now this nonsense. Makes me sick to my stomach. Have been getting rid of most of my PSA slabs.

[brev87]

The marketing is definitely catering to the young crowd. Almost reminds me of cigarette ads back in the day, when they tried to make it look cool to smoke

[NEOSportscards]

This has been a thing for a awhile, was announced right before the National. https://youtu.be/2sa03Ol3EoE

[salsdali]

Originally Posted by brev87

The marketing is definitely catering to the young crowd. Almost reminds me of cigarette ads back in the day, when they tried to make it look cool to smoke

or when they put trading cards in packs of cigarettes.



Oh, the irony, how life has come full circle.

[inaka]

Originally Posted by NEOSportscards

This has been a thing for a awhile, was announced right before the National. https://youtu.be/2sa03Ol3EoE

Yes, but it's not launched yet, and it's still pre-launch in beta.
I got a direct email about it only on Friday. New to me.

It's a really shady concept to me, especially trying to hook in kids with the GameStop connection and marketing. But that's just me.

[brev87]

Originally Posted by inaka

It's a really shady concept to me, especially trying to hook in kids with the GameStop connection and marketing. But that's just me.

Bingo!

I thought about this, and as a show vendor, this is alarming to me. The fact that customers can now use PSA's offers against me when negotiating is alarming.

PSA is really squeezing out vendors, customers and casual collectors. If I can't get a card for a decent price, how will pass that onto my customers? We're forced to make 5% on nearly every deal.

Not to mention customers will now just buy repacks from PSA. So either shows have to lower the table prices, or dealers like me have to stand firm on comp prices. Either way, everyone gets screwed with this

[bojesphob]

Did a break on FanaticsLive a couple weeks back (was cheaper than buying a box, since I really only collect a small number of teams nowadays), and before it started, the breaker was doing Fanatics "packs" like this. One guy dropped several thousand on them. Now, he did get some nice things from it, but nothing anywhere close to what he spent on them. Of course, I think he was a card shop owner and seems to buy into hundreds of breaks on Fanatics. I thought about getting one, but decided against it because even though several people on there were getting some good cards, I'd be the one that spent 150 dollars for the pack and got the 50 dollar card in return.... Seriously blew my mind how much money some of those guys were throwing at those. Well, and the breaks themselves too, the guy getting a lot of those "packs" was also spending 500 dollars a pop on the Tigers in every break I was looking through.

[Snowcat]

Originally Posted by brev87

The marketing is definitely catering to the young crowd. Almost reminds me of cigarette ads back in the day, when they tried to make it look cool to smoke

Joe Camel was a pretty cool dude

[rfgilles]

Originally Posted by brev87

Bingo!

I thought about this, and as a show vendor, this is alarming to me. The fact that customers can now use PSA's offers against me when negotiating is alarming.

PSA is really squeezing out vendors, customers and casual collectors. If I can't get a card for a decent price, how will pass that onto my customers? We're forced to make 5% on nearly every deal.

Not to mention customers will now just buy repacks from PSA. So either shows have to lower the table prices, or dealers like me have to stand firm on comp prices. Either way, everyone gets screwed with this

I'm not sure I follow you. How does this affect card show vendors?

[brev87]

Originally Posted by rfgilles

I'm not sure I follow you. How does this affect card show vendors?

Card is comped at $100, PSA is offering $90. Are you walking around with that same card and selling to a vendor for $85?

As a vendor, are you buying that same card at $90? Just to sell it at $100, knowing you're going to get offers for $95 all day? So you make $5?

[Crosby 87]

Originally Posted by brev87

Card is comped at $100, PSA is offering $90. Are you walking around with that same card and selling to a vendor for $85?

?

Yes, I am.

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by Crosby 87

Yes, I am.

Ditto.

This won't hurt card show dealers.

[TXRunner]

Originally Posted by brev87

Card is comped at $100, PSA is offering $90. Are you walking around with that same card and selling to a vendor for $85?

Taking that all day long. Comped on ebay more than likely. Subtract the selling fees and you are already pretty close to $85. I will take cash in hand immediately all day long over having to deal with Ebay or PSA.

[bub838]

Originally Posted by brev87

Card is comped at $100, PSA is offering $90. Are you walking around with that same card and selling to a vendor for $85?

As a vendor, are you buying that same card at $90? Just to sell it at $100, knowing you're going to get offers for $95 all day? So you make $5?

Absolutely. Cash is king.
85% is good from a dealer at a show, too. I see plenty of dealers buying at 70%-80%.

[Snowcat]

Perhaps this will squeeze out some of the sneaker heads that flooded the trading cards space during Covid.

This will have no real effect on the honest and respectable dealer

[brev87]

Originally Posted by TXRunner

Taking that all day long. Comped on ebay more than likely. Subtract the selling fees and you are already pretty close to $85. I will take cash in hand immediately all day long over having to deal with Ebay or PSA.

So you're going to wait to ship your card back, oh and pay for shipping that card. Get the card and walk a show "hoping" a dealer buys it at 85%? Knowing they're going to offer to 70 to 80%

OR

Take PSA's instant offer straight to your bank account with no fees?

Yeah ok, yall keep talking. I'm here for it

[NEOSportscards]

This will hurt dealers but in a different way. My guess is more people accept instant offers from PSA when they send cards to grade or vault the cards to either get an offer or sell thru eBay. This is going to take inventory out marketplace and keep it in the PSA eco system (Vault/Repacks/Offers). So a lot of cards that would have come back to customers to then take to shows to sell are going to get cut off. Dealers are already having a tough time competing with traditional re-packers.

Also I believe more features will come to the PSA Vault enticing folks to keep cards in it. Such as Instant peer to peer transfer, I have to imagine trading is coming at some point like Veriswap. Who knows what else they are cooking up.

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by brev87

So you're going to wait to ship your card back, oh and pay for shipping that card. Get the card and walk a show "hoping" a dealer buys it at 85%? Knowing they're going to offer to 70 to 80%

OR

Take PSA's instant offer straight to your bank account with no fees?

Yeah ok, yall keep talking. I'm here for it

Door number 2. And it doesn't hurt dealers since not too many folks are grading to walk show floors when eBay is any day or night. If anything, it hurts buyers since the dealers who do grade will not have that stuff in the showcase.

[inaka]

Originally Posted by NEOSportscards

This will hurt dealers but in a different way. My guess is more people accept instant offers from PSA when they send cards to grade or vault the cards to either get an offer or sell thru eBay. This is going to take inventory out marketplace and keep it in the PSA eco system (Vault/Repacks/Offers). So a lot of cards that would have come back to customers to then take to shows to sell are going to get cut off.

Initially, I completely agree. Take a card like the '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. People submit this card in droves hoping for a PSA 10 or at the very least a PSA 9. Well, every PSA 10 of this card is going to get a huge offer presented to the submitter by PSA that is likely too good to pass up so that this ends up in PowerPacks and becomes the chase card for these PSA PowerPacks. (Even the PSA 9 will get a really strong offer from PSA a chase for the lower end PowerPacks.)

This means that the collector out in the free market who wants a PSA 10 of this card is no longer going to see the same inventory on eBay and at shows as they once did.

However, greed is self-correcting.

The only saving grace for this system is that these junk PowerPacks are pure gambling and people want money and not the cards. The cards are just a tangible object to present value, and PSA doesn't actually want to deliver these cards. It's much cheaper for them to just keep them in the PowerPack swamp to keep the game going.

PSA needs the dangling keys (prominent chase cards) as a lure to get people to buy these packs. So my guess is that even as a PowerPack buyer, if you hit the elusive chase card and win the '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 10, then PSA will just throw the buyer/winner a PowerPack offer of cash value that's also too-good-to-be-true, and the winner will take the cash and not the card. I'm guessing people likely rarely ever want the card when a huge cash payout is another option, so you may see the same cert number PSA 10 UD Griffey card being used as a chase card for a year or more, recycled back into the ruse. The money is getting suckers/kids to buy the expensive packs with a guaranteed loss the majority of the time, and not in actually shipping the cards. So that will actually, eventually, reduce the inventory needed by PSA for these PowerPacks down the road.

Either way, way to go PSA, especially with the targeting of kids with the "loot boxing" of the hobby.

[brev87]

Originally Posted by NEOSportscards

This will hurt dealers but in a different way. My guess is more people accept instant offers from PSA when they send cards to grade or vault the cards to either get an offer or sell thru eBay. This is going to take inventory out marketplace and keep it in the PSA eco system (Vault/Repacks/Offers). So a lot of cards that would have come back to customers to then take to shows to sell are going to get cut off. Dealers are already having a tough time competing with traditional re-packers.

Also I believe more features will come to the PSA Vault enticing folks to keep cards in it. Such as Instant peer to peer transfer, I have to imagine trading is coming at some point like Veriswap. Who knows what else they are cooking up.

Well said. Thank you, someone is actually seeing what this truly is.

Show opens at 10am, by 10:30am all 3 of my display cases are half bought out. The average customer asks for so and so, sorry it was scooped up already.

Now I have to scramble to find more inventory that's not there. It's getting tough out here

[edogg1982]

Originally Posted by inaka

Initially, I completely agree. Take a card like the '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. People submit this card in droves hoping for a PSA 10 or at the very least a PSA 9. Well, every PSA 10 of this card is going to get a huge offer presented to the submitter by PSA that is likely too good to pass up so that this ends up in PowerPacks and becomes the chase card for these PSA PowerPacks. (Even the PSA 9 will get a really strong offer from PSA a chase for the lower end PowerPacks.)

This means that the collector out in the free market who wants a PSA 10 of this card is no longer going to see the same inventory on eBay and at shows as they once did.

However, greed is self-correcting.

The only saving grace for this system is that these junk PowerPacks are pure gambling and people want money and not the cards. The cards are just a tangible object to present value, and PSA doesn't actually want to deliver these cards. It's much cheaper for them to just keep them in the PowerPack swamp to keep the game going.

PSA needs the dangling keys (prominent chase cards) as a lure to get people to buy these packs. So my guess is that even as a PowerPack buyer, if you hit the elusive chase card and win the '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 10, then PSA will just throw the buyer/winner a PowerPack offer of cash value that's also too-good-to-be-true, and the winner will take the cash and not the card. I'm guessing people likely rarely ever want the card when a huge cash payout is another option, so you may see the same cert number PSA 10 UD Griffey card being used as a chase card for a year or more, recycled back into the ruse. The money is getting suckers/kids to buy the expensive packs with a guaranteed loss the majority of the time, and not in actually shipping the cards. So that will actually, eventually, reduce the inventory needed by PSA for these PowerPacks down the road.

Either way, way to go PSA, especially with the targeting of kids with the "loot boxing" of the hobby.

They aren't really targeting kids though. You have to be 18+ to buy a power pack. I mean I guess parents could be buying the packs for their kids, but that is just bad parenting then. That's not on PSA or Gamestop.

[inaka]

Originally Posted by edogg1982

They aren't really targeting kids though. You have to be 18+ to buy a power pack. I mean I guess parents could be buying the packs for their kids, but that is just bad parenting then. That's not on PSA or Gamestop.

They most definitely are targeting kids.
Just look at the marketing, even the partnership with Gamestop. It's hobby "loot boxing".

The previous member mentioning Joe Camel is a perfect example. Joe Camel targeted kids too, without explicitly stating the obvious. C'mon man.

[edogg1982]

Originally Posted by inaka

They most definitely are targeting kids.
Just look at the marketing, even the partnership with Gamestop. It's hobby "loot boxing".

The previous member mentioning Joe Camel is a perfect example. Joe Camel targeted kids too, without explicitly stating the obvious. C'mon man.

How are the kids buying the packs, without their parents doing it for them?

[inaka]

Originally Posted by edogg1982

How are the kids buying the packs, without their parents doing it for them?

Joe Camel can't be targeting kids, otherwise how are kids buying cigarettes when you have to be 18+ to buy them?

See how silly that argument sounds now?
C'mon man, the marketing is obvious.

It's normalizing gambling and targeting kids. Simple for a kid to use daddy's credit card, even without the parent's knowledge, especially when it's all online. Just a matter of time before we see news headlines of kids racking up thousands in debt buying these packs without their parents knowledge. Happens already on Whatnot breaks, etc. where teens gets addicted and use parents cards for thousands before they find out. I think Whatnot is 18 and up to create a buying account, but that doesn't stop kids from racking up debt without parents knowledge. Think loot boxes.