Card Heist Occurs at Gen Con 2023, Over $300K's Worth Stolen

Gen Con 2023 is in full swing, but the day before the festivities started, a heist occurred on the show floor.

Per Indianapolis’ WRTV, the tabletop game convention had over $300,000 worth of cards stolen from the show floor. Dicebreaker reported that the theft occurred on Wednesday, August 2 as vendors were setting up for the event at the Indiana Convention Center. Police in the area claim the thieves used a pallet jack to remove a pallet of cards, which allowed them to blend in since everyone was moving product around the convention floor that day. Dicebreaker further noted that the theft was pulled off with two thieves.

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According to Pastimes Games—a local retailer who was in attendance at the con—the cards stolen were from Magic: The Gathering sets. The store posted on Facebook that the cards were “mostly Commander Masters Set and Collector Boosters,” although they did not say how they knew this. The Commander Masters set has just released, so the many of the cards are not widely available. The set is the first Commander-focused set that Magic: The Gathering has released.

That said, Ravensberger said that its material wasn’t part of what was stolen. It wrote on Twitter that “all of our product at Gen Con is secure and accounted for.” This GenCon weekend is the pre-release launch for the publisher’s upcoming Disney Lorcana trading card game, and players have been queueing up for as long as 16 hours to get their hands on cards due to Ravensberger limiting how much product could be purchased by congoers. The cards have been in hot demand since the product line was announced, even more so since its September 1 release is just weeks away.

Indiana police are currently calling on the public for help in finding the thieves or the stolen cards. It’s advised that witnesses contact the Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477 or through the tips hotline on its website.

io9 has reached out to Magic: The Gathering and Pastime Games for additional comments. We will update this story as we get more information.

Updated, 8/9 12:13 p.m.: Added more information about the kinds of cards that were stolen.

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