I’m going to loosely use the term gambling here but modern card collecting is gambling adjacent in my opinion (or actual gambling in the case of breaks). This century there have been four forms of gambling that have come in and gone out of vogue at varying levels – first (online) poker, then fantasy football, followed by cryptocurrency, and online sports betting is the current zeitgeist. Collecting benefitted indirectly from all of them but the current popularity of sports betting seems to most directly relate to sports cards. The relatability between the two has probably helped prevent a bigger post-pandemic trough in (modern) card prices. Who knows how long peaked interest in sports betting will last and if and when it will be replaced by a fifth form of gambling. But when it does wane, I have a feeling the modern sports card market will dip as well. The two are just too close to each other. Who knows how that will impact the vintage market – time will tell.
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