Can Pokémon cards really make you rich?

It’s 5am on a chilly Wednesday morning in October and NME is standing outside a toy shop in Kent. There are more than a hundred people in front of us, and nearly twice as many have joined the queue by the time the doors are opened by a bleary-eyed employee four hours later. “What are we doing with our lives?” someone asks. One-by-one, successful punters file out of the shop with a variety of colourful cardboard boxes. Some tear into them like they contain the first hot meal they’ve had in weeks; others carefully examine the packages for damage before taking pictures and listing them on Facebook marketplace for three times the amount they paid for them. And sadly, a majority of the queue will leave empty-handed. This isn’t a one off, either. Similar scenes have been playing out across the UK and North America for the past few months as hobbyists go head-to-head with scalpers looking to get rich quick. Welcome to Pokémon card collecting in 2026. It's like wild chickens during feeding times 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/HQ0fUsNGH8 — Frost (@Frostbitings) September 17, 2026 When the Pokémon Trading Card Game first launched in the UK in 1999, it became a nationwide playground craze fuelled by the ...