No trend in the hobby has been bigger in 2025 than the repack.
Building off the success of physical repacks, a number of companies have jumped headfirst into the digital repack space to offer a similar product in a digital experience.
From the basics and benefits to the controversy, here’s a beginner’s guide to digital repacks.
What are digital repacks?
Similar to physical repacks, digital repacks are more or less trading card mystery boxes curated by a third party that contain cards already pulled from packs created by the manufacturer. Digital repacks traditionally contain a single graded card for a set price.
Unlike physical repacks, however, digital repacks are opened online with the physical twin of the card stored elsewhere.
Digital repacks fall into various categories, including football, basketball, baseball and even Pokémon. Repacks are often broken into different pricing tiers.
How do they work?
Digital repacks have a linear order of operations. Customers choose the category of repack (sport or TCG) as well as the pricing tier for the repack. The repack is then opened digitally with the customer taking immediate ownership of the card.
Customers can have the card stored in their collection through the company, shipped to them directly, or in some cases, sold back to the company for a percentage of the value.
Who makes the most popular digital repacks?
A number of companies make digital repacks, though the most popular in recent months have been from brands such as Arena Club and Courtyard.
Fanatics entered the digital repack market earlier this year with its Instant Rips product.
PSA also got into the game, collaborating with GameStop to create the Power Packs product.
What cards can be pulled in digital repacks?
The most reputable repackers provide checklists of each product so customers know ahead of time what is included in each pack.
For example, at the time of this article’s publication, customers could view the current odds for Courtyard’s Basketball Starter Pack, which sells for $25. On the product’s landing page is a list of cards that were recently pulled by other customers as well as a list of the more valuable cards still available.
Courtyard provided the following odds for the $25 product:
- $5 to $15: 29%
- $15 to $25: 40%
- $25 to $50: 23%
- $50 to $100: 6.4%
- $100 to $200: 1.2%
- $200 to $400: 0.1%
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Where are the physical cards stored?
The physical twins of cards included in digital repacks are stored by the company in a secured vault. From there, the cards can be transferred to the owner or resold back to the company.
What are the benefits of digital repacks?
There are a number of perceived benefits of digital repacks, starting with the value proposition. Though digital repacks offer a high chance of pulling cards valued lower than the initial purchase price, many customers view the value as a better return on investment than what can be found by opening sealed products directly from the manufacturer.
The ability to directly sell back the graded card, even at a loss, can also be viewed as a benefit because of how easy the transaction is. Reselling cards pulled when opening a sealed product, for example, can be tedious and frustrating, which often results in those cards being dumped or held.
Some customers also place value on the entertainment provided during the process.
Why are digital repacks controversial?
Both digital and physical repacks have a large number of detractors, with that group often comparing repacks to unregulated gambling.
At its core, opening packs of any kind — whether created by the trading card manufacturers or not — is a gamble of sorts, though repack critics often claim the products are going a step too far.
Critics have called for increased transparency, and even federal regulation, though the latter has yet to be explored in any widespread capacity by lawmakers.
Should you buy digital repacks?
Collectors should spend their money how they want as long as it's financially responsible. Both physical and digital repacks have provided an additional avenue to collect cards, and are a good fit for some collectors and a poor fit for others.
Take into consideration your own personal goals and how participating in repacks can help accomplish them.
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. He was previously the Collectibles Editor at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on X and Instagram @benmburrows.