{"id":376298,"date":"2026-08-28T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=376298"},"modified":"2026-09-30T08:40:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T15:40:22","slug":"pokemon-world-championships-2026-official-store-hit-by-scalpers-fans-report-scalper-alley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/pokemon-world-championships-2026-official-store-hit-by-scalpers-fans-report-scalper-alley\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon World Championships 2026 official store hit by scalpers: fans report \u201cScalper Alley\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People attending the 2026 Pok\u00e9mon World Championships in San Francisco say scalpers showed up again, this time gathering in a makeshift \u201cScalper Alley\u201d outside the official Pok\u00e9mon Center. Fans on site say backpacks, plushies, and hard-to-find Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game booster packs were being flipped almost as soon as they were bought, bringing back the same pattern that\u2019s followed limited Pok\u00e9mon launches for years: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/the-terrible-pokemon-fan-convention-that-has-gone-viral-for-scamming-everyone\" rel=\"noopener\">long lines<\/a><\/strong>, quick sellouts, and resale listings pushed far above retail.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fans were saying much the same after the 2025 event in Anaheim. According to those reports, <strong>more than double retail<\/strong> was already appearing on <a href=\"https:\/\/ebay-desktop.en.softonic.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\">eBay<\/a> 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\u2019s the backdrop here: Pok\u00e9mon\u2019s broader boom, from standard retail products and premium cards to promo tie-ins like McDonald\u2019s Happy Meals, keeps resale demand high, even though there\u2019s still very little public detail on how buying groups or bots coordinate purchases.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Pok\u00e9mon 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 <strong>$1,000<\/strong>. Fans say the reports coming out of San Francisco show those steps still aren\u2019t enough.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People attending the 2026 Pok\u00e9mon World Championships in San Francisco say scalpers showed up again, this time gathering in a makeshift \u201cScalper Alley\u201d outside the official Pok\u00e9mon Center. Fans on site say backpacks, plushies, and hard-to-find Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game booster packs were being flipped almost as soon as they were bought, bringing back the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/pokemon-world-championships-2026-official-store-hit-by-scalpers-fans-report-scalper-alley\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Pok\u00e9mon World Championships 2026 official store hit by scalpers: fans report \u201cScalper Alley\u201d&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9226,"featured_media":376297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6823],"class_list":["post-376298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-games"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376299,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376298\/revisions\/376299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376298"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=376298"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=376298"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=376298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}