Pokemon Center Singapore and Pokemon Vending Machines Implement New Anti-Scalping Techniques for TCG Purchases!

By: Water Pokémon Master · Posted Posted onMar 16, 2025 at 9:44 AM · 25 Comments

Pokemon Center Singapore has announced that until further notice, they will be removing the outer plastic wrap from all Pokemon TCG products before selling them to customers. The plastic wrap will be removed at the point of sale.

We’ve seen this technique occasionally used by small shops over the last four years, but never by an official Pokemon source. Perhaps we could see other Pokemon channels begin to implement this as well.

This technique is one of the most effective ways to deter scalping. Removing the plastic wrap essentially destroys “trust” in the product, rendering it impossible for a customer to know if a secondary seller has tampered with the packs.

Whereas if you’re a fan buying the product directly from Pokemon, you can trust it’s in its unused condition. Most fans simply want to open packs, so their experience is unaffected. (Only fans who collect sealed product will be impacted.)

Over the last two weeks in the United States, Pokemon’s TCG vending machines have implemented purchase limits on all products. Each machine will only release a certain number of products in undetermined intervals. This means a scalper will have to stand around for hours to clear out a machine; they cannot do it one fell swoop.

The machines also now state “Loitering is not permitted,” which gives stores an even more explicit option to remove scalpers who camp out at the machines.

Scalping is currently at an all-time high due to unexpected demand. Fight have broken out at stores when new TCG products release. This was the scene at a Costco in Toronto this morning when it put out a batch of 151 mini tins:

View thread (25 replies)
Or how about TPCI investigates the vendors for price gauging and selling products early to WhatNot clowns that are normalizing 10$+ packs on every new set. I know, "stop buying product from them" but I understand why people do because where else are they going to get it when so much of the vendor stock is going to WhatNot sellers/Scalpers...
 
Honestly I think even if you address scalpers you have the issue of some folks with the compulsion to buy as much product as possible. It's just gambling at this point, but the worst part is the obsession with the $$$ value of cards has ruined the enjoyment of the hobby a lot.

The shift from early gen 9 sets where cards were dirt cheap and easy to pull to now is pretty disappointing. But TPCI probably sees the short-term fat profits knowing folks will be hooked to the franchise no matter the shitstorm currently going on
 
Shining Goodra said:
Or how about TPCI investigates the vendors for price gauging and selling products early to WhatNot clowns that are normalizing 10$+ packs on every new set. I know, "stop buying product from them" but I understand why people do because where else are they going to get it when so much of the vendor stock is going to WhatNot sellers/Scalpers...
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This is only happening because TPCi didn't print enough product. If fans know they'll have easy access to a bunch of product, they won't pay outrageous prices.

I think it takes TPCi around six to nine months to print more product, so we'll see what happens in the summer/fall.

The company definitely needs to do better at predicting demand or they're just leaving money on the table and leaving fans disappointed. I think this latest round of short printing might have been because of the poor performance of Shrouded Fable (speculation), which any fan could have told you featured some super unpopular Legendaries. Any real fan could have told you an Eevee set would be incredibly popular.
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
This is only happening because TPCi didn't print enough product. If fans know they'll have easy access to a bunch of product, they won't pay outrageous prices.

I think it takes TPCi around six to nine months to print more product, so we'll see what happens in the summer/fall.

The company definitely needs to do better at predicting demand or they're just leaving money on the table and leaving fans disappointed. I think this latest round of short printing might have been because of the poor performance of Shrouded Fable (speculation), which any fan could have told you featured some super unpopular Legendaries. Any real fan could have told you an Eevee set would be incredibly popular.
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Agreed. If there was plenty of product for everyone to go around, there wouldn't be scalping or outrageous prices. The demand is demolishing the supply right now & Pokemon are getting new fans from different markets they didn't predict. Pokemon needs to step it up & get the card printers kickin' into gear.
 
TPCi inspires no confidence in me after the last 4 months.

They have no ability to gauge what's going on or to predict really obvious things that will drive up demand (like Pocket launching, or Prismatic Evolutions being based around Eeveelutions) and they've done absolutely nothing to address anything that's happening besides issuing a generic statement on social media months ago. What good is a vending machine screaming "no loitering" at us when the vending machine has nothing inside of it anyway?

If anything, they've kowtowed to all the scum that's made this hobby untenable since November. Nobody wants to buy our 2023 sets? Well make the pull rates bad. Nobody wants our poorly themed special set Shrouded Fable? Better short print sets after it that people will clearly want. As long as we don't have overstock, it's all good!
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
This is only happening because TPCi didn't print enough product. If fans know they'll have easy access to a bunch of product, they won't pay outrageous prices.

I think it takes TPCi around six to nine months to print more product, so we'll see what happens in the summer/fall.

The company definitely needs to do better at predicting demand or they're just leaving money on the table and leaving fans disappointed. I think this latest round of short printing might have been because of the poor performance of Shrouded Fable (speculation), which any fan could have told you featured some super unpopular Legendaries. Any real fan could have told you an Eevee set would be incredibly popular.
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Sorry but no. This isn’t happening just because they didn’t print enough product. This is definitely fueled by scalpers and a “cardboard stock market” type event. Just because they print more doesn’t mean the scalpers will buy less. Means they will just buy more.
 
Yeah...

If we're reaching a point where even simple fights can't scare TPCi into realizing that their current grasp on the TCG isn't working then there's really only two things are inevitable.

Firstly, someone's going to take these fights too far and end up fatally injuring someone (if not ending their game outright) and that will scare the spit out of big box retailers to the point where they'll either stop selling TCG products for a while or they'll shift it to online drops, neither of which benefits the casual consumer.

Secondly, if the first goes by and TPCi continues to act like nothing is wrong with the way their supplying distributors and retailers (outside of "underestimating" demand for a set that's been known since June 2024) then there's a good chance that there are malicious actors within the company's TCG division considering this problem's happened several times in recent history. As far as fixing it is concerned then the only way to do that is to drastically restructure TPCi's TCG division and cull said bad actors from their payroll.
gymleaderorion said:
Agreed. If there was plenty of product for everyone to go around, there wouldn't be scalping or outrageous prices. The demand is demolishing the supply right now & Pokemon are getting new fans from different markets they didn't predict. Pokemon needs to step it up & get the card printers kickin' into gear.
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Part of the problem is that TPCi's printers are already printing at the maximum capacity, the only way for them to boost said capacity is to buy more printers and/or printing companies.
Yaginku said:
TPCi could fix this at any moment by just printing product to demand. However, they care more about the scalper's trust in the resale value, than the consumer's trust in the product's availability.
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And even then you'd still have the garbage-tier Secret Illustrator Rare pull rate we've had since Paradox Rift, seeing people opening 200+ packs without any "hits" is just demoralizing.
MarlinRimes said:
Let’s hope the states implement that
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I've seen some LGSs implement it for selling products at MSRP (when they offer it of course) but implementing it on a wider scale is almost impossible, especially when a majority of stores don't get product from TPCi directly.
Pompidumbreon said:
I still believe a good distribution will do the job too:

Brick and mortar stores first, webshops 2nd
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Too bad a majority of distributors just as crooked as the various streamer-shops are, just look at MJ Holdings selling TCG products for WAY over MSRP via a shell company on Walmart's website.
Frost said:
TPCi inspires no confidence in me after the last 4 months.

They have no ability to gauge what's going on or to predict really obvious things that will drive up demand (like Pocket launching, or Prismatic Evolutions being based around Eeveelutions) and they've done absolutely nothing to address anything that's happening besides issuing a generic statement on social media months ago. What good is a vending machine screaming "no loitering" at us when the vending machine has nothing inside of it anyway?

If anything, they've kowtowed to all the scum that's made this hobby untenable since November. Nobody wants to buy our 2023 sets? Well make the pull rates bad. Nobody wants our poorly themed special set Shrouded Fable? Better short print sets after it that people will clearly want. As long as we don't have overstock, it's all good!
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Seconding this, they're basically treating the TCG like commodity (like WTOC did when they had the Pokémon TCG license) rather than a game these days.

Unfortunately I don't think much will change unless the fandom conducts and actual in-person protest (because companies these days know that an online one can and WILL peter out whilst receiving no media coverage) and the fandom has become too "domesticated" for that to ever happen due an intense fear of rocking the boat too much and being reprimanded by TPCi over it.
 
Atch78 said:
Sorry but no. This isn’t happening just because they didn’t print enough product. This is definitely fueled by scalpers and a “cardboard stock market” type event. Just because they print more doesn’t mean the scalpers will buy less. Means they will just buy more.
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I also fear this in a way. What are reprints if we have buyers with lots of $ to buyout the product?
 
Dunslax said:
They should go the extra mile and draw a penis on the boxes so that "people" trying to flip them can't buy them.
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Some of you all need to take a breather.

Scalpers are awful. They really are. But if it's getting to the point where you start dehumanizing them by putting quotation marks around "people", that's not understandable frustration, that's just delusion.
 
Frost said:
TPCi inspires no confidence in me after the last 4 months.

They have no ability to gauge what's going on or to predict really obvious things that will drive up demand (like Pocket launching, or Prismatic Evolutions being based around Eeveelutions) and they've done absolutely nothing to address anything that's happening besides issuing a generic statement on social media months ago. What good is a vending machine screaming "no loitering" at us when the vending machine has nothing inside of it anyway?

If anything, they've kowtowed to all the scum that's made this hobby untenable since November. Nobody wants to buy our 2023 sets? Well make the pull rates bad. Nobody wants our poorly themed special set Shrouded Fable? Better short print sets after it that people will clearly want. As long as we don't have overstock, it's all good!
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This. I’m still infuriated that they made pull rates so much more difficult. All it does is reduce the enjoyment of ripping while reducing singles accessibility, negatively impacting the main ways that people engage with this hobby. I think they were at a sweet spot in the F and G blocks, and believe those sets will be seen as some of the most fun sets to open in Pokemon history. I am not touching most of their newer sets with a 10-foot pole (excluding Shrouded Fable and Temporal Forces, as the IR lineups in those sets are amazing, and they didn’t change IR pullrates; they are also easier to get ahold of right now than most other sets)
 
Water Pokémon Master said:
This is only happening because TPCi didn't print enough product. If fans know they'll have easy access to a bunch of product, they won't pay outrageous prices.

I think it takes TPCi around six to nine months to print more product, so we'll see what happens in the summer/fall.

The company definitely needs to do better at predicting demand or they're just leaving money on the table and leaving fans disappointed. I think this latest round of short printing might have been because of the poor performance of Shrouded Fable (speculation), which any fan could have told you featured some super unpopular Legendaries. Any real fan could have told you an Eevee set would be incredibly popular.
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I agree with everything you said but that still doesn't answer why the actual vendors are inflating prices on product when there MSRP from TPCI has not, further aiding the fomo to grab product on the regular collector level. Popularity of the set should not matter, or the amount of product being pushed out from TPCI. You can go onto WhatNot right now and find multiple "streamers" with cases upon cases of product. Most of them have more product than you'd see at a regular brick and mortar shop and even big corp like Walmart or Target at times. Why is that? They're not registered through TPCI as vendors themselves obviously. I know of a few that are clicked in with certain vendors that share profits from the Whatnot streams so a lot of the vendors stock is held from these brick and mortars and given to these WhatNot/Scalper groups.... Most of these people aren't registered to buy directly from vendors either... There would be a lot more product to go around at the consumer level if the vendors weren't collaborating with the Whatnot scene to literally gatekeep sets and price points of products overall.
 
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