Rip a Pokémon card pack for $1: MintPull is climbing fast, but this table is already full

MintPull is a "buy and open online card packs" app available only in the US. You deposit money, spend from $1 to open a pack, and what you pull is a real card you can sell back to the platform at market price as balance, or ship home for a fee. It has had 270k installs on Google Play in three months. Its growth came from a referral code and a wave of hype, not from anything special about the product. By the time it was widely noticed, the US sports-betting companies Underdog and PrizePicks had also moved in. Below, we lay out how it grew, where the money comes from, and whether there's still room for you.

Two reviews, six days apart

On Oct 26, 2026, a user called ThnkTwceTy gave MintPull 5 stars on the App Store: "First time using this app, I turned $10 into $60. Just deposited $5 more, and I'd be happy if I make $30 back."

On Nov 1, another user gave it 1 stars: "At first you couldn't lose no matter how you opened packs. After about a week and 200 packs, suddenly I couldn't win a single one... It tries every trick to hook you, and once it thinks you're hooked, it cuts the odds."

These two reviews describe the same product, and together they show what it is: a blind box dressed up as a "collectible card" game. Google Play tags it 17+, Cash Rewards, with in-app purchases that include random items. The website homepage says "Rip. Sell. Ship." If a card sits in your vault for 7 days without action, it gets automatically sold back at 100% of market price.

What it is

• The iOS version is called "MintPull - Rip TCG Pocket" and was released on 2026-04-26. In the US store, 11-06 has 5,393 ratings with an average of 4.77 stars. The "TCG Pocket" in the title borrows the name of Pokémon's official app "Pokémon TCG Pocket," which gives it an edge in search.
• The Google Play version launched on 2026-08-06, is US-only, sits in the Shopping category, and its best rank was #63 on the US Shopping free chart (11-06).
• The operator is Arcane Answers Studio Limited, which says on its site it is a Hong Kong company founded in 2024. But the Play developer account is named Amber444, registered to a US individual and a gmail address, and the same account also hosts three unrelated utility apps. A gambling-like product published under a personal account is most likely meant to keep one account ban from taking down the whole company (inference). On iOS, a user wrote in a negative review: "I looked up who owns it, and it's shell companies inside shell companies."

How it took off

Play installs (third-party estimate plus 11-06 measured figures):

The climb was steep from mid-September to mid-October, four to five thousand a day. After late October it slowed to one to two thousand a day, and it has added 14.6k in the last 7 days. Ratings have grown steadily instead, adding 60–97 a day. The rating count is about 1.8% of installs, much higher than a typical app, which may mean in-app prompts asking for a rating (inference).

Two things drove the growth.

First, the niche itself is booming. The model originated in Japan as "オリパ" (original online card packs). The US leader, Rips by Triumph, launched in October 2025, got a feature in Wired in July 2026, and already has 1.82M installs on Play. June CrownCards, Rip Rush, and Tilt Rips followed. By autumn, many people were used to opening packs on their phones, had several of these apps installed at once, and were always looking for the next one that gave free packs. MintPull arrived right at that moment.

Second, the referral code gives packs to both sides. A new user who enters someone else's code gets a free pack, and the referrer gets one too. The promo says "up to $20." Reddit's r/referralcodes has at least 8 MintPull code posts, and communities like r/EarnExtraIncome, which covers earning money from apps, also have them. In Facebook card groups, someone posted "Not a restock, but free: MintPull..." On TikTok, a batch of alt accounts posted "Use my code on Mintpull," each getting one to four thousand views. These people were already bouncing between several pack-opening apps, so switching cost them almost nothing.

Outsiders can't see whether or how much it spends on paid ads. A negative iOS review mentions "misleading ads," and a UGC creator with 1.1M followers posted a #mintpull video that got only 10-28 1,227 views, which looks like bought ad creative (inference).

Why users stay and why they deposit more

The model is almost identical to Rips, CrownCards, and Rip Rush. What sets MintPull apart is the combination of retention hooks:

• Daily free pack: "No money needed. It gives you one a day, basically free" (10-30 review).
• Deposit $20 and get 7 days of a daily $1 pack: Some long-time users say that on CrownCards they had to deposit only twenty or thirty a week to qualify for the weekly reward, but on MintPull they need at least 100 dollars a week, "because the daily packs are so good."
• Losing cards charge up energy: Cards that sell for a few cents fill a progress bar, and when it's full you can redeem it for a pack. "Losing doesn't hurt as much."
• Odds you can adjust yourself: The top prize chance is around 10%. 10-26 One person wrote, "The chance of hitting a big card here seems higher than at Triumph."

To veteran players who run several similar apps at once, these features make MintPull "feel fairer," so their money concentrates there.

Where the money comes from

Beyond the house edge, it takes a cut at every step:

• Withdrawal fee 5%. 11-04 A 1-star review: "Bank transfer costs 5%, PayPal is 5%, there's no free way to withdraw, and they never said so when I deposited."
• Shipping. 11-04 A 3-star user shipped several saved cards together, "and they still charged $12 shipping per card, even though they arrived in the same envelope."
• Locked funds and pricing power. Money you deposit has to be spent before you can withdraw it. Cards left in the vault for 7 days get automatically sold back at the platform's own "market price."
• Withdrawal roadblocks. 11-03 One person said the selfie verification "failed on the spot with no retry, and I can't get my $40 out." 10-26 Another said "I can only withdraw to PayPal, and it's been 6 business days with no arrival."

There are no outside figures on how much it earns. Play doesn't show revenue ranges for apps like this, and iOS hasn't put it on the top grossing chart.

Negative reviews focus on three things: it lets you win at first, then the odds get worse (10-29 "They just changed the odds, and it's not what they advertised"); withdrawals are hard; and the cards that arrive are creased, with only half the value refunded.

Who it's competing with

MintPull sits in the middle of this group and is a late entrant. The most important part of the table is the last two rows: sports-betting companies with existing users and compliance teams have already moved in. PrizePicks' head of legal described it as "more like an e-commerce transaction than gambling," while also adding an age 18 minimum, deposit limits, and self-exclusion. As big companies set the compliance standard, the room left for shell companies, personal accounts, and small players who don't check California IDs will only shrink.

If it were you

C. Worth learning from, not worth copying. The business is real and it does make money, but the niche is already covered by the media, a dozen-plus apps are competing for the same deal-hunting users, big companies have just moved in, and regulation could come down at any time.

Who it suits: Teams already building gacha, blind-box, or check-in rebate products who want to copy its retention design. Or indie devs who know card players well and want to build tools for people who run several pack-opening apps at once.

Who it doesn't suit: A small team that wants to build another pack-opening app as-is. You'd have to hold a large inventory of physical cards, build withdrawals, KYC, state-by-state compliance, shipping and refunds, and compete with Underdog and PrizePicks for the same users. MintPull runs on shell companies and personal accounts, and that setup could be shut down at any time by the app stores or a single state.

How to do it: Two paths.

1. Borrow only the mechanics: The "losing still charges progress" energy bar, the "deposit once, get 7 days" return hook, and the two-sided referral rewards, placed in your own gacha or collecting product. These three come up again and again in reviews, and none of them touches real-money payouts.
2. Fill the gap they left: The loudest complaints in reviews are "which app's odds are real" and "which one withdraws fastest and at what fee." Build a tool or site that logs pack results across apps, calculates actual return rates, and compares withdrawal fees and arrival times for pack openers (inference: this crowd would use it and share their results).

How to get users: Go where this crowd already is: r/referralcodes, r/EarnExtraIncome, app-specific subreddits, Facebook card groups, and the alt accounts posting codes on TikTok. Pack openers love posting "$10 turned into $60" and "150 packs with no hit," and both make ready-made content.

When to move: If you want to build a tool, do it before the end of 2026, while similar apps are still launching one after another and players are still comparing across several of them. Once the industry consolidates under two or three big companies, the need for comparison shrinks.

What would mean you read it wrong:

• In the first half of 2027, personal-account pack-opening apps were still reaching 200k+ installs on Play within three months without being taken down, which shows the window for small players hasn't closed, so there is still room if you follow this model.
• Conversely, if a state attorney general goes after these apps, or Google Play classifies "physical prize random pack openings" as real-money gambling, the lending mechanic would have to drop the "cashable" part too;
• MintPull's daily installs have dropped below a few hundred and its rating is slipping, which suggests it's just a splash in a hype wave. Good mechanics can't hold people who came only for the free packs.