Digital Card Rips and the Kids-Gambling Question Nobody Has Settled

Why digital rips are catching on

Digital card rips let collectors open virtual packs backed by physical inventory, and platforms like Fanatics, Underdog and PrizePicks have made the format a fast-growing part of the collectibles market. The sharpest worry isn't about adult collectors. It's about kids.

Physical pack opening has always carried a ritual. You tear the foil, you flip the cards, and you feel the small jolt of seeing what came out. Digital versions compress that ritual into a phone screen. The pull happens in seconds, the next pack is one tap away, and the friction that once slowed people down is gone. That convenience is the selling point. It's also the reason regulators and industry veterans are paying attention, because the same design choices that make a product easy to enjoy can make it easy to overuse.

At the Invest New York 2026 conference, panelists named that risk as the biggest threat to the industry: digital rips becoming a form of gambling for children. Ken Goldin, founder and chief executive of the marketplace Goldin, didn't soften it. "In a worst-case scenario, it's slot machines for kids, isn't it?" Goldin is also the subject of the Netflix series King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch.

Notice the framing. Nobody on that stage said digital rips already are gambling. They said the format could slide into it, and that's a more careful claim. It's also a more uncomfortable one, because the industry can't wave it off as a fringe complaint. If the people selling these products are the ones raising the alarm, you'll want to know what they think should happen next.

Reward loops don't need a payout to work

Darren Rovell, founder of collectibles consultancy Cllct, argued the psychology is already in place. The reward, in his view, comes from the moment of anticipation, not the prize. "The dopamine does not hit based on the result," he said. A bad pull feels a lot like a good one in the brain's reward circuitry, which is exactly why slot-style design raises alarms.

Behavioral psychology has known for a long time that unpredictable rewards are among the hardest to walk away from. Fixed rewards get boring fast. Rewards that arrive at irregular intervals keep people checking, pulling and reaching for one more. Casino floors and mobile games have built whole businesses on that principle, and digital card rips borrow the same mechanics almost by default. (And this is the part most people overlook: the product doesn't have to pay out well to keep someone engaged. It just has to keep the anticipation alive.)

Goldin expects that dynamic to pull in bigger players. He anticipates "all the licensed gaming companies" moving into digital repacks. That's a notable prediction from someone inside the collectibles trade, because it means the gambling comparison may stop being a metaphor. Licensed gaming operators already know how to build engagement loops, manage odds and handle compliance. If they bring that expertise into card products, the gap between a collectible and a game of chance gets a lot narrower.

Who ends up holding the bag

Rovell's read is that the outcome depends on how hard outside authorities push. "It depends on how hard people want to go after this," he said. That's the question nobody on stage could answer. It's also the question that tends to decide how these fights end, since industries that wait for pressure often find themselves writing rules under duress.

Goldin's view is more pointed. He thinks the platforms selling repacks should own the rules. "If it's on eBayLive, it's eBay's job to regulate," he said, adding that Fanatics Live and Whatnot should set clear standards on product type and transparency, or ban sellers who don't meet them. That's a reasonable position, and it puts responsibility where the transaction actually happens. Still, it asks large marketplaces to police sellers they profit from, which is a tension no panel can resolve from a stage.

AJ Scaramucci, founder and managing partner at Solari Capital, pointed to a different exposure for repack companies: their ability to curate the assets they hold. If the inventory behind a digital pack is thin, mispriced or hard to verify, the product's credibility falls apart fast. That's the part I'd watch most closely. A pack is only as honest as the cards inside it, and when buyers can't see or verify what they're paying for, the whole format starts to look like a lottery with a nicer interface.

What this means if you're in the space

If you're building, selling or buying into digital repacks, the practical question is less about where the line sits and more about who draws it. Right now the answer is mostly the platforms themselves. That's uncomfortable for everyone, because platforms have commercial reasons to keep volume high, and sellers have reasons to push the most exciting pulls.

Here's the thing: the companies that set clear product, pricing and transparency standards now will have a stronger position than the ones that wait for someone else to draw the lines. Clear disclosure about what's inside a pack, how odds work and how inventory is verified costs something up front. It's still cheaper than rebuilding trust after a regulator or a news cycle does it for you.

That said, the panel didn't resolve the hardest part. The gambling comparison is the most dangerous frame for this format, and the people closest to it are the ones naming it. Whether that warning turns into self-imposed guardrails or a fight with outside authorities is still open. And yet the window for setting norms is probably narrower than the industry would like. Digital rips are still young enough that the rules haven't hardened, but that won't last forever.