People attending the 2026 Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco say scalpers showed up again, this time gathering in a makeshift “Scalper Alley” outside the official Pokémon Center. Fans on site say backpacks, plushies, and hard-to-find Pokémon Trading Card Game booster packs were being flipped almost as soon as they were bought, bringing back the same pattern that’s followed limited Pokémon launches for years: long lines, quick sellouts, and resale listings pushed far above retail.
Fans were saying much the same after the 2025 event in Anaheim. According to those reports, more than double retail was already appearing on eBay before the championships had even officially begun, and a lot of fans now see event stock getting siphoned into the secondary market as an ongoing problem, not a fluke. If you collect championship merch regularly, that’s the backdrop here: Pokémon’s broader boom, from standard retail products and premium cards to promo tie-ins like McDonald’s Happy Meals, keeps resale demand high, even though there’s still very little public detail on how buying groups or bots coordinate purchases.
The Pokémon Company and Nintendo have already tried a long list of fixes: purchase limits, timed entry, made-to-order sales, marketplace cooperation, Japan-only My Number ID checks, cutting booster-pack corners, and bans on graded cards or items priced above $1,000. Fans say the reports coming out of San Francisco show those steps still aren’t enough.
Author: Dave Warren Hans Co
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