TCG booster EV statistics

How much of a sealed product's price actually comes back as cards? This page aggregates the whole Worth the Rip dataset — every priced sealed product, every set, all ten games — into the numbers worth quoting. Everything recomputes from live TCGPlayer market data every two hours; methodology is at the bottom, and you're welcome to cite any of it.

The headline: as of 2026-09-11, the median sealed TCG product returns 56¢ of expected card value per $1 of purchase price, and 72% of the 721 products we track lose money after ~15% selling fees. The median booster box returns 89¢ on the dollar. Just 201 products are +EV right now.

EV is an average; the odds are what happen to you. Across the 721 products with exact odds, the median product has a 7% chance of paying for itself after fees, the median booster box 18%, and only 93 products give you better than a coin flip.

56¢median expected card value per $1 of sealed price
72%of products are −EV after ~15% selling fees
201products currently +EV, of 721 tracked
89¢median booster-box return per $1 (237 boxes)
7%median chance a product pays for itself — exact odds, after fees

EV by game

Median fee-adjusted margin across each game's sealed products — what you'd keep, per dollar, if you opened the median product and sold every pull at market price minus fees. Positive is profit; nearly everything isn't.

GameProductsEV per $1Median margin after fees% +EVMedian odds of profitBest rip right now
Flesh and Blood28271¢ +131%100%74%Omens of the Third Age Booster Box (+414%)
Weiss Schwarz70207¢ +76%91%29%FAIRY TAIL 100 YEARS QUEST Booster Box (16 packs) (+611%)
Digimon Card Game67176¢ +49%73%45%Exceed Apocalypse Booster Box (24 packs) (+544%)
Yu-Gi-Oh!83106¢ −10%42%21%Rarity Collection 5 Booster Box (24 packs) (+254%)
Star Wars Unlimited966¢ −44%11%14%Ashes of the Empire Booster Display (24 packs) (+19%)
Dragon Ball Super Fusion World2060¢ −49%0%6%Dual Evolution Booster Pack (−31%)
Magic: The Gathering10447¢ −60%0%2%Kaldheim Draft Booster Box (36 packs) (−34%)
Disney Lorcana3745¢ −61%0%6%Winterspell Booster Pack (−34%)
Pokémon24531¢ −74%9%3%Black Bolt Booster Pack (+414%)
One Piece Card Game5826¢ −78%5%1%Adventure on Kami's Island (OP15) Booster Pack (+105%)

A caveat the green rows deserve: the smaller games also have the thinnest singles markets. These margins assume every pull sells at market price — which is exactly the assumption a thin market tests. The big games' numbers are the trustworthy ones; the small games' numbers are the model's opinion.

EV by product type

Same math, grouped by what you're buying. The gap between product types is usually bigger than the gap between games — how the cardboard is packaged matters more than whose logo is on it.

Product typeProductsEV per $1Median margin after fees% +EVMedian odds of profit
Booster box23789¢ −24%42%18%
Booster pack27464¢ −46%32%10%
Booster bundle5046¢ −61%10%2%
Build & Battle2933¢ −72%0%4%
Premium & collector boxes3125¢ −78%10%5%
Elite Trainer Box5919¢ −84%5%1%
Sleeved & special packs41 −93%2%0%

Does sealed EV improve with age?

Each set scored by its best product's fee-adjusted margin, bucketed by time since release. This is a live cross-section, not a longitudinal study — sets that got expensive enough to leave print runs behind are what push older buckets around.

Set ageSetsMedian best-product margin
0–3 months old14 +8%
3–12 months old44 +20%
1–2 years old58 −20%
2–4 years old86 −36%
4+ years old78 −67%

The 10 best rips right now

Best product per set, ranked by fee-adjusted margin. These move with the market — a set on this list today can be −EV by the weekend, which is rather the point of tracking it live. Note how the huge margins cluster in the smaller games: thin singles markets, so see the caveat above before treating them as free money.

ProductGamePriceEV of pullsMargin
FAIRY TAIL 100 YEARS QUEST — Booster Box (16 packs)Weiss$63.94$535.14+611%
The Eminence in Shadow — Booster PackWeiss$4.51$37.59+608%
Exceed Apocalypse — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$74.89$567.23+544%
Advanced Booster Digimon Generation — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$89.10$648.20+518%
Blue Archive The Animation — Booster BoxWeiss$39.80$277.54+493%
Cyber Eden — Booster BoxDigimon$86.51$580.64+471%
Black Bolt — Booster PackPokémon TCG$14.40$87.02+414%
Omens of the Third Age — Booster BoxFAB$53.16$321.19+414%
Monarch — Booster Box (24 packs) [Unlimited]FAB$36.65$214.47+397%
Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Vol.3 — Booster Box (16 packs)Weiss$45.09$262.49+395%

…and the 10 worst

Even judged by each set's best product, these currently return the least. Buying them is paying for the fun of opening them — which is a fine thing to pay for, as long as you know the price.

ProductGamePriceEV of pullsMargin
Romance Dawn (OP01) — Booster Box [Wave 2] (24 packs)One Piece$1468.78$65.23−96%
Awakening of the New Era (OP05) — Booster PackOne Piece$34.36$1.62−96%
Generations — Elite Trainer BoxPokémon TCG$2999.19$195.20−94%
XY — Booster Box (36 packs)Pokémon TCG$3728.00$301.37−93%
Phantom Forces — Booster PackPokémon TCG$231.30$18.97−93%
Paramount War (OP02) — Booster Box (24 packs)One Piece$579.17$53.88−92%
Ancient Origins — Booster PackPokémon TCG$140.02$14.80−91%
Kingdoms of Intrigue (OP04) — Booster PackOne Piece$13.99$1.66−90%
Flashfire — Booster PackPokémon TCG$161.18$20.37−89%
Evolutions — Booster PackPokémon TCG$64.42$8.31−89%

Best odds of paying for itself

Margin ranks by the average outcome; this ranks by how often you actually come out ahead — the exact probability, read off each product's full outcome distribution, that its pulls cover its price after fees. The two lists disagree on purpose: a booster box concentrates dozens of packs of variance into one purchase, so a box can carry a better margin than its pack and still pay for itself less often, while a cheap pack with a fat guaranteed slot pays for itself constantly and never makes you rich.

ProductGamePriceOdds after feesMargin
Advanced Booster Digimon Generation — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$89.10100%+518%
Versus Monsters — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$66.35100%+348%
Resurgence Booster — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$54.28100%+218%
Everfest — Booster Box (24 packs) [1st Ed]FAB$43.98100%+249%
Monarch — Booster Box (24 packs) [Unlimited]FAB$36.65100%+397%
Time Stranger — Booster BoxDigimon$81.77100%+225%
Tales of Aria — Booster Box (24 packs) [Unlimited]FAB$39.53100%+147%
Exceed Apocalypse — Booster Box (24 packs)Digimon$74.89100%+544%
Bright Lights — Booster Box (24 packs)FAB$50.28100%+274%
Super Slam — Booster BoxFAB$47.86100%+253%

Methodology

Every number on this page is computed from the same dataset that powers the calculator. Sealed prices are TCGPlayer market prices (via TCGCSV), refreshed every two hours. Expected value multiplies each set's pull-rate model — community estimates, since no publisher discloses odds; each set page shows its model — by live singles prices. "After fees" applies a ~15% haircut for marketplace fees and shipping, the same one the calculator uses. Odds of profit are not simulated: the calculator's odds engine computes each product's exact outcome distribution (the pack model convolved with itself once per pack, by FFT) and reads the probability off it; a product only shows odds when that engine and the price snapshot agree on its EV. Aggregates use medians, not means, so a single outlier product can't move a headline number. This page regenerates with every price refresh; the date above is the current snapshot.

Use these numbers

These statistics are free to cite in articles, videos, forums, and research — just link worththerip.com/stats/ as the source so your readers can see the live figures. Suggested citation: "Worth the Rip, TCG sealed-product EV statistics, retrieved 2026-09-11." Raw data is available from the free JSON API — no key required.