It\u2019s possible to win a gem mint Surging Sparks Pikachu EX Pok\u00e9mon card worth as much as $840 from a vending machine in the Pentagon food court. Thanks to a company called Lucky Box Vending, anyone passing through the center of American military power can pay to win a piece of randomized memorabilia from a machine dispensing collectibles.On Christmas Eve, a company called Lucky Box announced it had installed one of its vending machines at the Pentagon in a now-deleted post on Threads. \u201cA place built on legacy, leadership, and history\u2014now experiencing the thrill of Lucky Box firsthand,\u201d the post said. \u201cThis is a milestone moment for Lucky Box and we\u2019re excited for this opportunity. Nostalgia. Pure Excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Lucky Box is a kind of gacha machine or lootbox, a vending machine that dispenses random prizes for cash. A person puts in money and the machine spits out a random collectible. Customers pick a \u201ctype\u201d of collectible they want\u2014typically either a rare Pok\u00e9mon card, sports card, or sports jersey\u2014insert money and get a random item. The cost of a spin on the Lucky Box varies from location to location, but it\u2019s typically somewhere around $100 to $200. Pictures and advertisements of the Pentagon Lucky Box don\u2019t tell us how much a box cost in the nation\u2019s capitol and the company did not respond to 404 Media\u2019s request for comment.Most of the cards and jerseys inside a Lucky Box vending machine are only worth a few dollars, but the company promises that every machine has a few of what it calls \u201choly grail\u201d items. The Pentagon Lucky Box had a picture of a gem mint 1st edition Charizard Pok\u00e9mon card on the side of it, a card worth more than $100,000. The company\u2019s social media feed is full of people opening items like a CGC graded perfect 10 1st edition Venusaur shadowless holo Pok\u00e9mon card (worth around $14,000) or a 2023 Mookie Betts rookie card. Most people, however, don\u2019t win the big prizes.Lucky Box vending machines are scattered across the country and mostly installed in malls. According to the store locator on its website, more than 20 of the machines are in Las Vegas. Which makes sense, because Lucky Boxes are a kind of gambling. These types of gacha machines are wildly popular in Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia. They\u2019ve seen an uptick in popularity in the US in the past few years, driven by loosening restrictions on gambling and pop culture crazes such as Labubu.Task & Purpose first reported that the Lucky Box had been in place since December 23, 2025. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough told 404 Media that, as of this writing, the Lucky Box vending machine was still installed in the Pentagon\u2019s main food court.Someone took pictures of the thing and posted them to the r\/army on Monday. From there, the pictures made it onto most of the major military subreddits and various Instagram accounts like USArmyWTF. After Task & Purpose reported on the presence of the Lucky Box at the Pentagon, Lucky Box deleted any mention of the location from its social media and the Pentagon location is not currently listed on the company\u2019s store locator.\u00a0 But it is, according to Gough, still there.In gaming, the virtual versions of these loot boxes are frowned upon. Seven years ago, games like Star Wars: Battlefront II were at the center of a controversy around similar mechanics. At the time, it was common for video games to sell loot boxes to users for a few bucks. This culminated in an FTC investigation. A year ago, the developers of Genshin Impact agreed to pay a $20 million fine for selling loot boxes to teens under 16 without parental consent.The practice never went away in video games, but most major publishers backed off the practice in non-sports titles.\u00a0Now, almost a decade later, the lootboxes have spread into real life and one of them is in the Pentagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"