Bally Poker Live’s broadcast today (November 11th, 2026) will include Pokémon pack opening during its live cash game stream. The $25/$50 NLH “High Stakes Pokemon Stadium Showdown” takes place at the Commerce in Los Angeles and will be streamed on YouTube, starting at 14.30 local time (21:30 GMT/22.30 CET).
The line up includes Pokemon collector/streamer PokeVault8, who will be opening packs of cards during the game and assessing the value of each card pulled. He made his debut appearance on the stream two weeks ago. Not unlike a mystery bounty tournament, the goal is to find extremely rare cards, which can be worth huge amounts of money.
Others taking part in the game alongside PokeVault8 include Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates and Phil Laak. A Bally Poker Live X post advertising the game asks
“Are you ready to STACK ‘EM ALL?!?”
and says that the players will be “RIPPIN’ CARD PACKS LIVE!” on stream.
What is Pokémon
Pokémon began in Japan 30 years ago as a video game for the Game Boy, Nintendo’s first handheld cartridge gaming console (thanks to my 12-year-old video game collecting son for this info). It soon became a global cultural phenomenon with a cartoon series and trading card game packs coming out soon after.
It is the trading card game which involves opening packs of purchased cards that is the focus of the Bally Poker Live stream today. There is a huge global market for trading and selling Pokémon cards. While most are worth very little, only a few cents each, very rare cards can we worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or for the very select rarest cards in existence, even millions of dollars.
As well as being collectors items, Pokémon cards can be used for a turn based strategy game, where players pit their Pokémon creatures against each other in a staged battle. With both collectable value and the utility of playing a strategy game with them, it’s not surprising that Pokémon peaks the interest of a lot of poker players.
Child’s Play?
Pokemon appeals to both adults and children alike and this is where it may be a little troublesome, as PokeVault8’s target audience on his main YouTube channel is 10-year-old kids. A 2023 clip he posted on Instagram shows him sitting at desk in a school playground, with dozens of kids lining up clutching Pokemon cards for him to rate, alongside the message
“King of the 10 year olds 🤣
This is where being a Pokémon YouTuber really pays off. Career day at my daughters school 🤷🏻♂️”
Assuming that PokeVault8’s YouTube channel does indeed have a significant number of under-age followers, it raises the question of whether this is a suitable crossover, as it could expose the younger part of his audience to gambling content, intended only for people aged 21 and over. As Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, who is on the shortlist for the 2026 Global Poker Awards‘ ‘Most Entertaining Player’ category, might say,
“is this good for poker?”
Meanwhile, GTA6 is out next week, yay!