A Pokémon booster pack isn't a single random draw — it's a sequence of independent slots, each with its own pool of eligible cards and its own odds. Understanding the slot structure is the key to understanding what any pack can actually produce.
Every pack is built from slots
A modern English pack contains a fixed number of cards, and each position in the pack is a slot with a defined job. Most slots are commons and uncommons, one is a guaranteed reverse holo, and one — the hit slot — is where the rare and chase cards live.
- Common slots: drawn from the full common pool, each roughly equally likely.
- Uncommon slots: the uncommon pool, again close to uniform.
- Reverse holo slot: any card in the set, in its reverse-holo finish.
- Hit slot: a weighted draw across rare, double rare, illustration rare, and the top chase rarities. This is the slot the weights matter for.
Weights, not just rarities
Within the hit slot, cards aren't equally likely. Each rarity tier carries a weight, and rarer tiers carry far smaller weights. The probability of any single card is its weight divided by the total weight of everything that slot can produce. That's why a specific special illustration rare can sit below 1% even though "some kind of hit" is guaranteed.
How to read the real numbers
Rather than estimate, you can read the exact per-card probability for any set RipVault carries. Open a set's odds page and you'll see every slot, every card it can pull, and its precise probability. Start with the full set list, or jump straight to a popular set's breakdown to see the model in action.
Because RipVault models digital packs on the real sealed product, the odds you see are the odds you open against — and you can verify any result yourself afterward.