Ahead of the first anniversary of Pokémon TCG Pocket at the end of October 2025, the company finally announced what they were going to do with the Advance Ticket that has been a mystery for just about one full year now.

The Advance Ticket was distributed to anyone who started playing Pokémon TCG Pocket from launch until January 30th, 2024. According to the official support website, it’s just known as “a ticket you can use for something in the future.” Players have now had this ticket for up to 364 days as of writing, with no indication of what it’s used for.

While it’s been a mystery for quite some time, it is no longer! The Advance Ticket, as it turns out, is actually a Lottery Ticket.

The Advance Ticket Drawing will be held in Pokémon TCG Pocket, starting on October 29th, 2025, at 11 PM PDT, or 2 AM for those on the East Coast. Basically, it’s whenever your usual “new day” starts. This will be available by logging in at least once by January 28th, 2026.

But, what are the prizes for the Pokémon TCG Pocket Advance Ticket drawing?

Pokémon TCG Pocket is, at its heart, a game from Japan for Japanese players. And Japan loves lotteries and drawings, especially referenced in quite a few Pokémon games over the years. There’s generally a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prize. That’s not different here.

1st prize: 1,200 pack hourglasses will be awarded to 100 players

2nd prize: 120 pack hourglasses will be awarded to 10,000 players

3rd prize: 24 pack hourglasses will be awarded to all other players, even those without an Advance Ticket.

So, if you just log in after the start period, you’re going to be awarded at least 24 pack hourglasses that can be used to open up two booster packs from the wide assortment of options. This includes the newest set that releases on the same day, Mega Rising.

While it isn’t much for most players, at least Pokémon TCG Pocket isfinally doing something with the long-forgotten Advance Ticket.

In the meantime, Pokémon TCG Pocket put their 1st anniversary update out a tad early, and it’s full of a bunch of new quality of life enhancements to the game, even if not everything is fully functional as of the time of writing, like Sharing. If you need to still finish off your battle tasks for previous sets, check out my guides to knock out both Deluxe Pack ex (which should still be around to finish after the packs are removed from rotation) and Secluded Springs for a lot of free hourglasses.