Don't be fooled, these games are surely not done in the favor of the user, everyone would be playing them otherwise. You must be lucky to get something worth your money. But gambling games are designed in the way only a few players are the lucky ones. The majority of them will lose in such games. So I fully understand OP with his comment.
The house always wins. agreed. but as the games go, this one is most favorable for a win. There are two main types of gambling games. One where the odds are low and the pay off is low. two, where the odds are terrible but the payoff is great.
The 25 game doesn't have a great payoff, but, from what I have read, seems to deal out many gift cards etc. slot machine has terrible odds, but has the big pay out.
My experience with the games is that they
may well be "fair" - by which I mean give no direct advantage to either the house or the player, at least for those of us full collections. However, to be sure of this would require averaging over a very large number of plays and I do not have access to that data. I have not played anywhere enough to be sure what the long term prospects are even for myself. but my personal experience suggests (and no more than suggests) that the games are not very far from being "fair", and are likely to favour those with small collections providing that you you regard winning a random card as being a win rather than as a loss. If this is so then they will be a good deal for some, those with small collections who just want to grow their collection, and a much worse deal for those that only want specific cards (these latter should probably choose not to play).
It should be noted that in a game, such as most of those here, that offers both relatively rare high value prizes and much more common lower value prizes that being "fair" in the sense outlined above will mean that more people will lose out when playing than will gain from it (and there will be some outliers where people lose or win heavily),
Also note that Totem would be expected to gain even if the game is biased in favour of the players (as long as that bias is not too strong) if the games encourage enough people to spend their credits earlier than they otherwise would as well as by a simple increase in the number of cards "sold".
