This post was planned immediately after my prior post about my resolution to stop buying boosters, but I didn't have the time to write this to post on the same day. I don't major in psychology; only did a minor course about it but enough to learn the basics of it and I will not use any context of it to avoid complication. But, while I am on the subject of gambling; i.e, the gamble of luck in opening booster packs for profit, I want to reflect more about this.
Let's talk about the gamble when opening a booster pack. I pay $4 to gamble against the odds in opening a good rare/mythic rare that is either playable or profitable. We can easily Google to find the stats in which the odds of opening a particular card, a foil and the odds of profiting from the booster pack; I'm not going to post this here, but we can safely assume the above 2 has less than the odds of 0.05% to hit jackpot, while the other may probably see around 20% to make profit; the value depends on the expansion size and the demand of the play. Now here is the thing; the odds of hitting jackpot may increase as I buy more packs, but the odds of profit actually decreases! Follow me on this one; Assuming you want a rare foil, just any rare foil from a booster box. It's guaranteed that there is a foil rare/mythic rare per booster box, so odds are 1/36. If I buy the second pack, the odds will decrease to 1/35 and so on until I buy the last pack and I'll be guaranteed to open the foil rare. (Basically the numbers should converge to 1 if I add them up, i.e. 1/36 + 1/35 + 1/34 + ...) Hold on! Because from the profit point of view, the rare I open or the combined value of the 15 cards per booster pack must be above $4, as I buy more, the odds of me profiting will decrease. Why? It's proven that it is unlikely to earn from a booster box, especially for a large expansion set and we know that per expansion set don't usually have crazy priced rares which are almost the price of a booster box. Let's not talk about JTMS and his gang... Those are pretty much exceptions and even if we are looking at the prices now, WWK expansion booster boxes are going at around $500+ per box. Also, as I said, the odds of profiting from a booster pack may be at around 20% optimistically, and combined with the fact that earning from a booster box is nearly impossible, there is this threshold or peak in which we will hit at which the point where we are making a loss and whatever cards sold from there are merely recovery of the prior expenditure. Hence, as we open more packs, we are looking at a larger amount to cover and this decreases the profit margin more. To sum up, we are looking at buying more to increase the odds of getting what we want, but at the losing end, we aren't actually profiting from our booster openings.
Remember the roll-over concept I was talking about in the previous post? The one which I open a rare more than $4 and I will think of a free roll to open another pack? Yes that one! The thing for this is the mindset of the gambler. For instance, I open a Shockland from a booster pack. With Shocklands are going at around ~$12 and the booster pack from RTR expansion are going at say $4 for simplicity purpose, I actually will make a $8 profit. However, generally I would not stop there. I would probably think something like, "Hey, I've $8 more to spare, let's open another 2 packs and see our luck!" Why? RTR block has other profitable rares for the modern format like Abrupt Decay, Sphinx's Revelation, Deathrite Shaman (Banned, but still in demand for Legacy) and as discussed above, the odds of opening a specific rare increases as I open more. Hence, I'd roll that $8 to another 2 packs to open something else which may reap a profit. After all, hey, it's a free roll! The worst is that I am spending $12 for a Shockland + 2 other rares and a few other goodies as throw in! Yes, that's still quite a reasonable deal, but look at this, from the initial $8 profit, and roll, I've decreased my profit to nearly nothing, or whatever amount the 2 rares combined. Assuming that if both rares do not make the $4 recovery value, I've cut my profit from $8 to less than $8.
Now here is another thing; temptation is a huge factor. You open a couple of boosters and you get crap. You see another guy pick up a pack and he opened a really good rare which covers his booster spending. I'd dare say you'll be tempted to keep opening to try to cover back the loss. (As discussed above, higher odds right?) It may work that you actually cover your loss, but end result? instead of spending let's say $20 from the 5 boosters, you probably spend twice or thrice the amount and probably you covered back 20%. Let's stick to that, it may be more, but the end loss is still going to be more than that amount you spend (lost) initially despite the cover-ups.
The third factor is slightly less relevant to me, but regarding about thrill seekers who seek the thrill in opening packs as I mentioned in the previous post, I don't have much of an opinion on this as I personally do not open packs for the thrill. I do that for the fun... wait maybe there is a connection and assuming the connection holds, it would probably go something like buying the booster pack just for no rhyme or reason and just want to open to see what you open. Normally this would be because that of the person will want to seek satisfaction or enjoyment. The thrill factor would provide that sense of satisfaction or enjoyment that he/she is looking for; for the other instance, it's not about curiosity but it would probably be more of doing it without an objective. (It's like how the Joker kills and cause havoc without any reason. He simply just do it.) I cannot explain the reason specifically, but that's pretty much close to what I can think of in words. Thrill seekers probably would start out for the fun or for satisfying that need for a thrill, but as when they open more packs, they would turn to their mindset to find ways to cover their loss; while they are at it, more packs! Getting a box prices would mean a significant cheaper per booster price. That's the immediate way to cover losses. The next would probably be bringing up the gamble to the next level; Pack war. If you are unfamiliar with Pack war, the game is simple. Open your packs and bet with your rare or any valuable uncommons. There are a few auto-win conditions, like getting a foil rare or the money card of the set. But, normally everyone will open the packs and reveal their rares and they will check the value on an established pricing site. The winner will take all the rares in the pool; in the event of a draw, they will roll-over into the next round of booster opening. (see what I mean!) I personally participated once, and managed to walked away winning. But, that is after losing horribly in my own opening spree. The thrill level is definitely higher. It's like double-or-nothing; the stakes are much higher and so are the rewards. I've seen players opening a few boxes at a go when playing this. In the end, it only matters to them if they cover up their losses as much as possible, but not about profit.
I know not all of us share the idea of profiting from a card game, but as a personal opinion to look as a way for a small secondary income, I have to look at this in a way that is financially profitable.
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