The Collectibles Economy: Repacking, Live Breaking & Gaming Convergence

EKG’s special topic report, Casino Without iCasino: The Rise of Reveal Gaming, examines how casino-style games are reaching U.S. states that have not legalized online casino. The report covers three routes: pari-mutuel-powered gaming (PPG) settled on live horse races through ADW licenses, Hard Rock’s Florida games settled on past motor races under the Seminole compact, and the first casino games built on live sports data. Built on EKG’s ADW Slots Market Model, Oregon Racing Commission hub data, hands-on product testing in Florida, and EKG channel checks, the report sizes the PPG opportunity, maps state-by-state access, and assesses the platforms, operators and suppliers entering the category. Key findings: A real-money casino channel already exists in closed states. PPG brands are live in 22 states, including California, New York and every state that has banned sweepstakes casinos. Game Play Network, the largest PPG platform, handled $535M through its Oregon hub in the 12 months to June 2026 and accounted for all of the Oregon hub system’s growth. Florida shows the scale of demand. Seminole sports net win moved from a $1.6B pre-launch forecast to roughly $2.9B in the cycle Hard Rock’s casino-style games launched, with $3.2B forecast for next year. EKG estimates the games are running at about $2.4B of annualized GGR, about a third of what a licensed Florida iCasino market would produce. EKG sizes PPG at $2B to $5B of annual GGR at maturity. The range depends on how far the product closes the gap with instant-settlement games. The floor from displaced sweepstakes demand alone is $1.3B; California and New York are 59% of it. Institutional entry has started. EKG channel checks indicate a leading PPG brand is being acquired by a major regulated operator, major content suppliers that stayed out of sweepstakes are evaluating PPG, and the first sweepstakes operator has launched a real-money product on ADW infrastructure.

EKG’s special topic report, The Collectibles Economy: Repacking, Live Breaking & the Convergence with Gaming, examines the rapidly evolving trading-card economy through a gaming lens, with a focus on digital repacks, live breaking, instant buybacks, and the infrastructure developing around them. Built on Collect Alpha transaction data, EKG’s U.S. Trading Card Market Model, primary product testing, and third-party app intelligence, the report sizes market activity, analyzes the economics and engagement loops of leading platforms, and assesses where collectibles and gaming are beginning to converge. Key findings: Trading cards have become a scaled transaction economy. EKG models ~$17.6bn of normalized U.S. trading-card transaction activity at current 2026 run-rates, roughly 1.9x modeled 2025 activity, with game-driven digital formats now ~23% of the total. The convergence with gaming is increasingly visible in product design. Digital repacks and ripping combine randomness, rarity, variable outcomes, instant liquidity, repeat play, and volatility selection with a reward consumers value independently of cash. Platforms are becoming a new structural buyer of scarce collectibles. High-value cards increasingly function as operating inventory—used as chase prizes, marketing assets, and reusable supply inside closed-loop products—creating a new source of demand for genuinely scarce assets. Gaming has a clear reason to pay attention, but not every operator has a right to win. The strongest direct-to-consumer opportunities sit with companies that already control fandom, IP, inventory, or distribution; for others, partnership, acquisition, infrastructure, or importing the underlying product mechanics may be more attractive. What the report includes: EKG’s U.S. Trading Card Market Model, sizing normalized transaction activity across secondary marketplaces, live commerce, digital repacks, and ripping, with primary retail analyzed separately An analysis of trading-card market performance, grading volumes and capacity, TCG growth, Pokémon, and the expansion of cards into mass retail A detailed look at repack economics, consumer sentiment, buyback structures, and the mechanics increasingly making digital repacks resemble gaming products Live-breaking market data across Whatnot, Fanatics Live, and eBay Live, including seller concentration, platform economics, and the evolution of creator-led commerce Deep-dive case studies on Whatnot and Rips by Triumph, including product design, engagement, acquisition, retention, liquidity, volatility selection, and monetization An examination of vaulting, custody, insurance, authentication, and valuation as the infrastructure layer supporting increasingly liquid and high-value collectibles EKG’s analysis of the emerging structural-buyer flywheel, including how platform inventory demand may affect genuinely scarce cards and where that thesis breaks down A gaming-convergence framework comparing collectibles mechanics with casino, live dealer, social casino, prize-draw, and other gaming products A review of regulatory treatment across selected markets and the potential implications as randomized, cash-out-enabled collectible products scale EKG’s strategic assessment of the ways gaming companies can participate—including build, buy, partner, and infrastructure models—and which types of companies have the strongest right to win