POKÉMON PACK EXPECTED VALUE
Rip Station publishes the expected value of every pack it sells. A pack pulls one real, professionally graded card, so a machine’s expected value (EV) is the average market value of the cards currently loaded in it. Every machine is listed below. The figures are read live from the vault and regenerated at least every 10 minutes.
EV BY MACHINE
| Machine | Pack price | Expected value | EV edge (keep or ship) | Sell back (83%) | EV edge (sell back) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon $25 Pack | $25.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
| Pokémon $50 Pack | $50.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
| Pokémon $100 Pack | $100.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
| Pokémon $150 Pack | $150.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
| Pokémon $200 Pack | $200.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
| Pokémon $250 Pack | $250.00 | Restocking — no cards in this machine right now | |||
Every rip is completely random and independent. EV is an average across many rips, not a guarantee on any single one. Not financial advice.
AUCTIONS — CARDS SELLING BELOW MARKET
Rip Station also runs a continuous auction: one real graded card at a time, each lot open for 24 hours, with $0.50 minimum bid increments and a 3% buyer premium on top of the winning bid.
Across the last 45 completed auctions, the median winning bid was 82.4% of the card's estimated market value, and 0 of 45 (0.0%) sold for under 15% of value. The cheapest cleared at 26.0% of value. That is a small sample from a new auction — many lots receive no bid at all — so it describes how the auction has cleared so far, not what any future lot will sell for.
OPEN FOR BIDDING RIGHT NOW
| Card | Est. market value | Top bid | Bid as % of value | Bids | Bidding ends (UTC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 Pokemon Ex Ruby & Sapphire #101 Mewtwo Ex-Holo | $311.00 | $11.00 | 3.5% | 3 |
Lots on this page were open at the timestamp above and close at the end times shown — a lot listed here has almost certainly settled by the time you read a cached copy of this page. See what is live now.
DISCOUNTS LIVE RIGHT NOW
New users who arrive through a referral link get 10% off their first pack, applied automatically at checkout.
Sign up through another user's referral link. The code lands on your account shortly after you log in and applies automatically at checkout on your first rip.
Standing offer, no scheduled end date.
During the Treasure Dive, logged-in users get five dives on the $50 Pokémon machine; the discount starts at 10% and climbs to 30%, from $45 down to $35, as each rip advances the ladder to the next dive.
Log in to take dive 1 on the $50 Pokémon machine. Each rip advances you to the next dive, discounts climbing from 10% off up to 30% off; a buyback that beats what you paid claims the motherlode and ends the run. One run per wallet.
Valid until 2026-08-16.
Only offers running today are listed here; this page drops a promotion within 10 minutes of it ending. Whatever applies to your account is shown at checkout.
HOW EV IS CALCULATED
One pack reveals one card. The expected value of a pack is therefore the average current market value of every card sitting in that machine, weighted by how likely each is to be pulled. Card values come from real recent sales across the trading card market, so they move with the market rather than with a price we set.
The EV edge is simply how that expected value compares to what the pack costs: (EV − pack price) ÷ pack price. A positive edge means the average card in the machine is worth more than the pack costs.
The same live vault composition produces the pull odds below, which is why the two always agree.
KEEP OR SHIP VS SELL BACK
These are two different EV paths and they do not carry the same edge, so both are published above.
Keep it or ship it. You end up holding a card worth its full market value, so you realise the EV edge in the table — on average, more than the pack cost you.
Sell it straight back. The machine buys any card back at 83% of its current market value, paid instantly to your wallet. That multiplies the expected value by 0.83, which pushes the edge negative. The buyback stays open for 7 days after each rip and is always optional.
In short: the edge is real if you keep or ship what you pull, and flipping every card straight back to the machine costs you roughly the buyback spread.
PULL ODDS BY MACHINE
The market-value band of the card you pull, and how likely each band is. Computed from the live composition of each machine.
EV QUESTIONS
- What is the expected value (EV) of a Rip Station pack?
- One pack pulls one real graded card, so a machine's expected value is the average market value of the cards currently loaded in it. Live figures for every machine are published on this page.
- Is ripping packs on Rip Station profitable?
- It depends on what you do with the card. Keeping or shipping realises the card's full market value; selling it straight back to the machine returns a fixed percentage of that value. Live figures for both paths are published on this page.
- How does the 83% buyback affect expected value?
- The buyback pays 83% of the pulled card's current market value — not a percentage of the pack price. It multiplies the expected value by 0.83, which is what turns a positive keep-or-ship edge into a negative flip-it-back edge. The buyback stays open for 7 days after each rip, and taking it is always optional: you can keep the card in the vault or ship the physical slab instead.
- Do discount codes change the EV edge?
- Yes — a code lowers what you pay while the expected value stays the same, so the edge rises by the same proportion. Discounts are promotional and time-limited; any offer that applies to your account is shown at checkout.
- What are the most valuable cards you can pull right now?
- The machines are restocking, so there are no cards to list right now. The five most valuable cards in every machine are published on this page whenever the vault is loaded.
- Is the auction cheaper than ripping packs?
- Often, yes — they are different things. Ripping a pack is random: you pay a fixed price for an unknown card. The auction is not random: you can see exactly which card you are bidding on. Rip Station also runs a continuous auction: one real graded card at a time, each lot open for 24 hours, with $0.50 minimum bid increments and a 3% buyer premium on top of the winning bid. Across the last 45 completed auctions, the median winning bid was 82.4% of the card's estimated market value, and 0 of 45 (0.0%) sold for under 15% of value. The cheapest cleared at 26.0% of value. That is a small sample from a new auction — many lots receive no bid at all — so it describes how the auction has cleared so far, not what any future lot will sell for. Right now, 2003 Pokemon Ex Ruby & Sapphire #101 Mewtwo Ex-Holo has a top bid of $11.00 against an estimated market value of $311.00 — 3.5% of value — with bidding open until 2026-08-02T21:59:20.313Z.
- How often is the EV updated?
- Every figure on this page is read live from the cards currently in each machine and regenerated at least every 10 minutes. Card values move with real recent sales across the trading card market, and the EV moves as cards are pulled and the vault is restocked.
- Are the pull odds published?
- Yes. The odds for every machine are published on this page and on each pack page, broken down by the market-value band of the card you pull. They are computed from the live composition of the vault, so they change as the machine's contents change.
Figures on this page were generated on from the cards then in each machine, and are regenerated at least every 10 minutes. Rip Station is a virtual card vending machine: every card is real, professionally graded, and held in an insured vault. Every rip is random and independent. Not financial advice.