Pack Site Expected Value, Explained With Real Published Numbers

Expected value is the average value you pull per pack if you open a lot of packs. On the packs below it runs from $3.72 on a $5 pack to averages above the pack price, and the gap between those two numbers is the whole story.

People shorten it to EV. A pack has one EV, worked out from its published odds: each value band multiplied by its chance, then added up. Some sites print the average themselves. That printed average is the cleanest place to start, because it uses the site’s full distribution instead of midpoints you have to guess at.

What the sites print as their average

These are stated average pull values from each platform’s own published odds, which we transcribed on October 8, 2026. The percentages are that average divided by the pack price.

Read the Courtyard row first. Every Courtyard pack we checked sits at 96%, so the price changes and the rate does not. A $15 pack returns $14.40 in Courtyard’s own fair market value on average, a $50 pack returns $48. That consistency is useful. It tells you the margin is set at the pack level, before luck gets a say.

Gemint shows the opposite pattern. Its $15 and $25 packs sit near Courtyard’s rate, at 96.5% and 97.8%. Its $5 Quartz pack drops to 74.4%. Same site, same published odds format, a very different deal at the cheap end. You cannot judge a site by one pack, and you cannot judge a pack by the site’s best tier.

Run the average over 100 packs

Averages mean little on one pack, so stretch them out. Open 100 of Courtyard’s $15 packs and you spend $1,500. At the stated average you pull $1,440 worth of cards at Courtyard’s values (100 x $14.40 = $1,440). The expected cost of the fun is $60, or 60 cents a pack.

Do the same with Gemint’s $5 Quartz pack. One hundred packs cost $500 and return $372 at Gemint’s values (100 x $3.72 = $372). The expected cost is $128, or $1.28 a pack. The cheap pack costs more than twice as much per dollar spent. Pack price and pack value move independently, which is why the percentage matters more than the sticker.

That is EV in dollars. Divide the average by the price and you get the percentage form, the same idea casinos call return to player. Below 100% you pay for the opening on average. At 100% the average pull matches the price. Above 100% the stated average beats the price, and that claim deserves a harder look.

Why an average above the price is not a profit

Collector Crypt and MNSTR both print averages above their pack prices. Collector Crypt’s $25 Starter averages $27.63, and MNSTR’s $50 Starter averages $54.75. Before you treat either as an edge, check whose dollars those are and what a normal pull looks like.

The dollars are the site’s own values. Collector Crypt’s bands use its insured value per card, per its odds file. MNSTR’s bands use its own fair market value, the same figure its buyback is quoted against. An average above the price in a value the seller sets is a claim about that value, not cash in hand.

The normal pull also sits well below the average. On MNSTR’s $50 Starter, the Common band pays $30 to $50 and takes 73.07% of pulls, per its published tiers. On Collector Crypt’s $25 Starter, the Common band is $13 to $30 at 75%. Roughly three pulls in four land at or below the pack price on both. Rare and Epic bands pull the average up, and most buyers open too few packs for the average to arrive. EV describes a crowd opening thousands of packs. It does not describe your ten.

Selling back changes the number again

The averages above are card values. If you sell the card straight back to the site, apply the buyback rate to the average, not to the price.

Courtyard pays 90% of fair market value, per our Courtyard listing. Its $15 pack average becomes $12.96 in cash terms (14.40 x 0.90 = 12.96), which is 86.4% of the price. Collector Crypt pays 85% on its $25 packs, per our Collector Crypt listing. Its $27.63 average becomes $23.49 (27.63 x 0.85 = 23.49), or 93.9% of the price. The above-100% headline ends below 100% at the cash-out step. MNSTR advertises up to 95% of fair market value, per our MNSTR listing, which would put its $50 average at $52.01 at best (54.75 x 0.95 = 52.01). That one stays above the price on paper, with two catches from its own terms: the rate is “up to” 95%, and buyback availability is not guaranteed.

Gemint is the honest blank in this table. It publishes pull rates and a stated average for every pack, and no sell-back percentage at all, per our Gemint listing. You can work out its EV in Gemint values. You cannot work out its cash EV from public pages, and that missing number is worth more than a decimal of precision on the first one.

So the 30 second check on any pack is three numbers in a row: the stated average, that average as a percentage of the price, and the same average after the buyback rate. If a site will not give you the first or the third, you are not missing a detail. You are missing the price of the product.

Compare packs side by side on our compare pages, browse Courtyard alternatives if that 96% rate is the benchmark you are shopping against, and read how we score value and fairness before you trust any single percentage, ours included.

Pack ripping costs real money, so treat every pack like entertainment with a price, not an investment with a plan. These sites are 18 and up only.