Today I will discuss how to convert tix online into actual, real-world cash. This is the final, nonetheless essential, step in the process of successful investment on MTGO.

Hopefully, after several fruitful speculations your bankroll has grown enough and now you want to get some of your benefits back. Just like with selling and buying, depending on the time and effort you spend to transform your digital currency into real currency, you may extract more or less value from your tix.

As discussed in my article about buying tix, my reference price when selling tix is $0.95/tix. You can always try to sell your tix for more, or for more than what you buy them for, but remember that the overall goal here is to speculate on cards, not on tix.

Selling to Stores

Mtgotraders

Speaking of reference price, Mtgotraders buy tix at 0.95$ a unit, at least until last November. When the suspension of MTGO events was announced, Mtgotraders decreased their buying price from $0.95 to $0.90/tix, making it much less attractive.

In the past, I have sold them hundreds of tix, several times a year. They can absorb a large quantity of tix at a time. In addition, they are friendly, efficient, and most of all trustworthy.

Also, back then, I was in the US but my PayPal account was still in euros. To avoid potential fees using PayPal I opted for a bank check, which they offered as one form of payment. I usually received the check within a week. If you don't have a PayPal account and/or want to avoid potential fees, this is an option you may want to consider.

Mtgotickets

Like Mtgotraders, Mtgotickets are buying tix now for $0.90. So far I haven't used them. They also run an offer on the Classifieds. While they don't propose the best buying prices, it's good to know another place where you can go and easily unload tix.

To a Single Person

eBay

These days, there's pretty much no competition if you want to sell your tix on eBay, and that's probably for a good reason: eBay will net you the lowest return of all possible options.

At first, it doesn't seem like it. Auctions on tix frequently end with a price of about $1.00/tix. As you know, eBay has some fees, 10% of the final price. Then, since you are likely to paid by PayPal, you will have to apply PayPal fees, around 4%.

All together, if you sell 100 tix, you'll be left with something around $87 in your pocket…assuming your final price reached 100 tix for $100.

In sum, eBay can be a great place to buy tix or collections, but it's definitely not a good place to sell.

QS Trading Section

QS is a great place to sell (or buy) tix to QS members. This section of the forum is getting more and more active as new QS members join and more people turn to the MTGO market. It is up to you to propose the prices you want; $0.95/tix seem to be accepted as a general consensus for the moment.

The Classifieds

Selling directly in-game by posting your offer on the Classifieds is a pretty straightforward option. If you do a quick search, you will notice not so many people or stores are advertising for tix on the Classifieds. With your competitors right in full view, it is also easy to adjust your price, up or down, to make sure you stay competitive.

Selling tix through the Classifieds has, however, a few disadvantages.

• First of all, if you're new in town, people are not going to trust you easily, and it may take time before becoming known as a trustworthy tix seller.
• If people might be scared of you scamming them, you should also be vigilant about your potential customers. PayPal is the most widely used method of payment, along with the use of poker sites to transfer the money. You want to avoid selling tix to people using stolen credit cards or other types of fraudulent accounts. I'm not really sure what could happen in that case, but for sure you won't see your tix again. Until you know you can trust a client, selling your tix by small quantity is always a safe move.
• Finally, and especially if you are a new dealer, it will probably take some time to find your first clients. I've never really tried to sell tix this way, but if you have some spare time and manage to build a reputation as a trustworthy tix seller I'm sure the Classifieds could become a primary place to sell your tix, and probably above $0.95/tix.

Sometimes, people on MTGO also propose buying offers via the Classifieds, around $0.92/tix. If the price looks interesting to you, make sure you are not getting scammed. Always play it safe.

Others

You can also sell tix via various other means. Any Mtg/MTGO forum is a potential place to advertise your tix, in accordance with the forum policy.

When I was looking to sell my first batch of tix, I posted an offer on Mtgsalvation. The owner of Mtgotraders was one of the first guys who contacted me and I sold my tix to them at $0.95/tix, the price I was willing to sell them for.

Another avenue is friends and acquaintances who play MTGO. Unless they can go infinite with drafts or Constructed, they will probably be happy to buy tix from you at a better price than anywhere else.

Alternative Ways to Cash Out

Selling Cards

An indirect option for cashing out of MTGO investments is to sell the digital cards directly. Since tix are much more versatile than cards, this method is unlikely to be successful. However, if you manage to sell cards, on eBay for instance, you might be able to get a little premium out of them, even after fees.

You have probably noticed some auctions for MTGO cards or sets on eBay. Their prices are ridiculously high, even higher than on usual MTGO stores. If you manage to sell some now and then, particularly cards from early sets or cards in demand, you might be able to make more than the equivalent of $0.95/tix in the end.

Here is a plausible example. As of last Friday, Spellskite is selling at 13.96 tix on Mtgotraders. You might be able to sell it at 12 tix or so to bots on MTGO. These 12 tix are worth $11.4 with our reference price. But if you can sell it on eBay for $14, after 14% fees you still have $12.04 in your pocket. You have "sold" 12 tix for $12.04, a pretty nice price in deed.

Redemption

The redemption system is the bridge between the virtual and real worlds of Mtg. For some fees, you can exchange a redeemable set on MTGO for the same set in real paper cards. Let's see if that can be a viable way to convert your tix or cards into cash.

Redeeming a set will cost you $25 per set ($5 for Return to Ravinca and older sets) plus shipping costs. The shipping costs are $2.99 per order within the US, and $29.99 per order for anywhere else in the world. Needless to say that you want to order several sets at a time, and these shipping fees are another big hurdle if you are not living in the US.

For example, a THS set is worth about 100 tix. Assuming you got your tix at $0.95/tix, this THS set is worth $95. Say you want to redeem four sets, this is going to cost you 4 x 95 + 25 x 4 + 2.99, four THS sets for $120.75 each.

Making money with redeemed sets is not really a lucrative business. On eBay, you can see THS complete sets in BIN for about $165. Selling on eBay includes about 13% fees, meaning that people selling these THS sets will get only $143.55, and that doesn't take into account the shipping fees they will have to pay to deliver the set to the buyer. In the end, that's less than $20 profit, and you are not going to sell complete sets ten times a day.

For our concerns, if you can get $105 for a THS set on eBay (including eBay/PayPal, shipping, and redemption fees), you have "sold" 100 tix for $105, or $1.05/tix. That is a significant 10.5% increase compare to $0.95/tix. Still, this requires some work and time for a minimal profit.

In my opinion, your best shot here would probably be to try to get in touch with your LGS and see if they are willing to buy complete sets. With the same initial cost for a redeemed THS set ($120.75), if you can sell several sets for about $130 it becomes an interesting way to get an extra 10-15% for your tix as compared to the $0.95$/tix baseline. According to what your LGS needs, you may also redeem other sets.

Selling Digital Sets

Alternatively, something I have tried which removes some of the burden is to sell digital sets on eBay. Last November, I completed four THS sets for 97.8 tix each. Since at that time redemption was on hold, I decided to sell them as-is on eBay.

I listed my sets at $135 each. I sold two of them in December, and nothing else since then. Once I had paid all fees, I was left with $116.99, a very nice rate of $1.19/tix. However, as you guessed it, selling two sets in two months is not really a reliable way to sell tix, even if the price is absurdly high.

I was also trying to sell these sets directly on the Classifieds, for $110 each, with no success so far, mainly because I can't have my offer online 24/7.

Among all these options, I hope you'll find one to efficiently sell tix for cash returns on your MTGO investments.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvain Lehoux