{"id":870440,"date":"2026-08-17T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=870440"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:26:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:26:47","slug":"the-hidden-r1-5-billion-economy-in-south-africa-driven-by-luck-and-desperate-collectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/870440\/the-hidden-r1-5-billion-economy-in-south-africa-driven-by-luck-and-desperate-collectors\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden economy in South Africa worth R1.5 billion, driven by luck and desperate collectors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The trading card game (TCG) industry is a rapidly growing global sector, and South Africa is as involved as the rest of the world, with the market valued at up to R1.5 billion in 2025\/26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modern TCG space as we know it today has been around in South Africa since 1993, when the popular game Magic: The Gathering was released, with several other notable games following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These games include Pok\u00e9mon and Yu-Gi-Oh, which were both released soon after Magic: The Gathering and became cult classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The games involve buying and collecting physical trading cards, each featuring a different character or item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cards are sold in randomised packs, with each card featuring a different rarity and unique design. Which cards you get is based entirely on luck, making some of the rarest cards incredibly valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The games are not limited to geek culture and related franchises; they also extend into sports cards, with soccer, baseball, American football, basketball, and many others, each having their own decks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original intention was for these cards to be traded among people, but the popularity of these games led to the emergence of an entire second-hand market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since collectors were not able to buy rare cards directly and had to rely on chance when buying packs, they soon started looking to buy the trading cards they wanted from others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This second-hand market has grown exponentially in recent years, with the most expensive trading card ever sold fetching approximately R266 million at the current rand-to-dollar exchange rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the PSA Gem Mint 10 Pikachu Illustrator Pok\u00e9mon card, which sold for $16.5 million through Goldin Auctions on February 16, 2026\u2014currently certified by Guinness World Records as the top trading card sale in any category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While South Africa has not seen such exorbitant sales in its TCG sector, the industry has grown significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The website NerdInitiative<\/a> provides estimated sales prices for trading cards from several notable franchises, including Pok\u00e9mon and Magic: The Gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief look at the website will reveal many cards valued at over R100, with others reaching over R10,000 when particularly rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the prices on this site are estimates of what a trading card could sell for, sites such as eBay reveal how much people are willing to spend on their collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The site regularly sees South African cards sell for thousands, and has dedicated pages to trading cards from popular franchises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, regular TCG packs for popular games cost approximately R100, meaning that players can potentially make exponential profits if they are lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A growing industry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to researchers<\/strong><\/a>, the South African trading card industry is worth between R680 million and R1.5 billion in 2025\/26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a small fraction (0.3%-0.5%) of the industry’s global value, estimated at over R400 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the local TCG economy is expected to grow, with projections of a 6.5%-7.5% CAGR, reaching R2.2 billion by 2033.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s TCG market accounts for approximately 13.8% of the industry’s value in Africa and the Middle East, beaten by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of the industry does not only come from physical games, as digital games have also entered the market in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While digital games have largely replaced physical games over the last decade, the TCG industry remains split between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite digital offerings entering the market, physical games and cards remain valuable due to the large collector community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many collectors, high-value trading cards are seen in a similar light to investments, holding or potentially growing in value over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The value of a trading card is not only decided by its rarity, but also by its condition, which is a major determinant in the selling price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The condition and value of a card is often decided by an independent adjudicator, with the most popular being the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collectors can send trading cards to the PSA, which will then assign the card a rank out of ten, with the value of the card going up with the rank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A perfectly ranked “mint condition” trading card can be worth significantly more than an ungraded card, sometimes selling for millions in the global market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the PSA does not operate in South Africa directly, there are several companies which serve as middlemen for citizens looking to have their cards graded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africans can also ship their cards directly to the group, but this can incur higher costs than using middlemen who consolidate bulk shipments for grading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photos of trading cards<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
1998 Pikachu holo, sold for $16.5 million.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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South Africa’s trading card game industry is a huge money-spinner for anyone lucky enough to cash in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":870500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2089314304826740962","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2178787842941615","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[24038,11552,26187,26186],"class_list":["post-870440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-pokemon","tag-professional-sports-authenticator","tag-tcg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870440"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870545,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870440\/revisions\/870545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}