Can You Really Make a Full-Time Living Buying and Selling Magic: The Gathering Cards?

I‘ve been professionally buying, selling, and trading Magic: The Gathering (MTG) cards for over 7 years now. So I‘m quite familiar with the actual income potential, massive challenges, and reality of trying to fully replace your salary by solely focusing on MTG cards.

And the clear answer is yes, you definitely can earn strong profits but replacing a full-time income solely from buying and selling Magic cards long-term is extremely difficult. With the right expectations, patience, and adaptability however, you can make it the centerpiece of a rewarding career in the gaming industry.

How Viable is Building a Business Around Magic: The Gathering Cards?

There‘s no question that some people make comfortable incomes from Magic cards through various business models:

• Top professional traders selling into strong markets
• Owners of gaming stores with diversified product offerings
• Content creators monetizing popularity like YouTube videos
• Players winning prizes from tournaments or selling “on the circuit”

But the reality is those consistent six-figure earnings are rare unless supplemented by other stable income streams.

Why? The Magic secondary market faces inherent challenges most other industries don’t:

• Prices fluctuate wildly based on unpredictable meta and new releases
• Only a tiny portion of cards hold high value due to sheer volume printed
• Hard to compete against giant online stores with total market dominance

That‘s why virtually all professional Magic resellers rely on additional revenue whether it‘s a side job, webcam modeling, financial investments, or support from a working spouse.

Purely replacing the average American‘s $53k annual salary solely from buying and selling Magic every year for decades is almost unheard of.

But with the right business model tailored to your skills and realistic income goals, you can absolutely earn strong profits in the five to low six figures annually.

What Are The Various Methods To Earn Money From Magic Cards?

If you want to maximize income from Magic cards, people typically focus on a combination of these avenues:

Buy and Sell Valuable Cards

This involves research to identify good deals on the most valuable, older, and rare cards in demand which can sell for high premiums to collectors, investors, and competitive players.

For example, an iconic card like Black Lotus goes for north of $150k while more common Modern/Standard staples might fetch $50-$500 based on condition and moments in the meta when certain decks shine.

Obviously this is easier said than done – you need immense game knowledge, industry connections for sourcing, available capital to hold inventory, and some luck navigating the turbulent waters of price spikes and declines.

Selling just one high ticket item like a Black Lotus can net more profit than 500 copies of staple rares. This demonstrates the challenge of scaling solely on lower cost cards.

Resell Bulk Cards

You won’t get rich quick buying 50 cent rares and $5 bulk boxes but this avenue has traced profits with less risk.

The key is buying unwanted bulk commons/uncommons for around $.005 each (so ~$5 per 1,000 cards) and reselling to major shops for ~$.015 per card. Listing locally on Facebook or Craigslist allows capturing even higher margins but takes more effort.

Assuming you buy collections for 50-70% of the Cardsphere/TCGPlayer valuation and sell bulk for 67% higher than your cost, you could reasonably net 30-40% profit flipping bulk cards in high volume.

This still requires sourcing lots of inventory constantly, transporting bulk boxes, listing asynchronously online and locally, meeting strangers to exchange, and eating shipping costs that eat into margins with volume.

Open Your Own Gaming Store (LGS)

Owning your local game store (LGS) allows buying & selling larger volumes of sealed product and cards while also generating revenue from event fees, concessions, board games, etc.

But overhead costs are extremely high – you need a leased retail space, several employees, inventory across gaming lines, consistent marketing, capital reserves etc. And Magic alone won’t sustain the business so you must appeal to board gamers, Warhammer players, Pokémon fans, etc. too.

If you can keep customers coming back with a nice venue, community events, bargain inventory, and top-notch customer service, an LGS can be very profitable. But expect long hours and slow holiday seasons.

Resell Entire Collections

When a long-time player decides to quit Magic, you want first dibs on their collection spanning decades if they didn’t keep up on organizational maintenance. Offer 40-60% of the total TCGPlayer value depending on conditions and highlights.

It takes forever to sort and price out 20,000+ cards across sets but profits are almost guaranteed if you get it at fair bulk rates and identify gems hidden inside like dual lands or reserved list cards they forgot about.

Listing locally lets you capture more profit and sell the true bulk at buylist rates to major vendors. It just may take months to offload certain cards versus quick cash.

What Income Levels Are Realistically Achievable?

While we all dream about landing a six-figure job buying and ripping open boxes all day, playing with squads at the bar, and selling into explosive bull markets, that‘s rarely the reality of professional Magic dealing.

The income ceilings depend heavily on your business model and risk tolerance but based on typical margin profiles, you‘d likely need:

• ~$125k Inventory to generate $50k net income
• $350-500k Inventory to produce $100-150k net income

With lower overhead than a retail store, you can minimize costs by working from home and optimizing shipping, fees, etc. But expect long hours hunting for deals, sorting inventory, creating listings, responding to messages, and fulfilling orders.

To afford holding that much inventory, you need significant starting capital, leverage low-interest business credit lines, have secondary streams funding growth, and/or minimize your expenses living with family etc.

Without this runway budget to build up equity, income generally only allows supporting yourself minimally or generating supplemental earnings – not replacing a corporate salary entirely.

Income Fluctuations Are Extreme

Because the Magic market depends heavily on unpredictable factors like new set hype, meta shifts, buyouts, spec targets getting banned or reprinted…income varies DRAMATICALLY week to week and month to month.

Six figure months fueled by major event wins or times when your niche strategy becomes Tier 1 gives way to summer droughts where players touch grass until fall spoiler season picks back up.

I‘ve had months as low as $3k when holding mostly Standard cards rotating soon after above $15k months selling into Modern/Legacy spikes. Budget diligently and have 12+ months operating expenses accessible, not invested to handle the swings.

Final Recommendations For Jumping In

While purely buying and selling MTG to replace your full-time income does work for some top traders, it‘s somewhat of a pipe dream without significant starting capital, business experience, connections, and supplemental revenue.

That said, don‘t let the challenges dissuade you from tapping into this exciting industry if you have the passion for Magic finance and a prudent plan tailored to your skills and risk appetite!

No matter what business model you pursue to monetize Magic cards – be reasonable setting income milestones, stay nimble to market shifts, and don’t risk more than you can afford losing on overhyped specs!