Former NFL linebacker accused of scamming Pokémon card collectors

Former NFL linebacker Blaze Martinez has been accused of scamming Pokémon card traders and buyers and has even been banned from social marketplace platform WhatNot.

Martinez, who played for the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants, retired from the NFL shortly after he sold a rare Pokémon card for $600,000 in 2022. He then ventured into the realm of selling Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and sports trading card sets under the name Blake's Breaks.

According to OutKick, the former fourth-round pick in the 2016 NFL draft amassed over $5 million in just seven months as a full-time card trader. The New York Post claimed that Martinez made a whopping $11.5 million in revenue in his first year of operation.

The former Stanford player's business has since been banned from WhatNot for foul play, amid claims that the company has been scamming traders on its livestreams.

Complaints stemmed from viewers of Blake's Breaks livestream, where the company was accused of purposely prolonging the time it takes viewers to win prizes, as well as planted viewers winning prizes repeatedly.

"If you've ever watched Blake's multiple channels it's crazy how long the bounties go and they magically get hit by repeat bounty winners," a Reddit post claimed.

WhatNot announced that the company was banned from the platform after an investigation: "We really appreciate the community’s commitment to reporting trust & safety issues. Our priority is ensuring a fair and honest experience for customers and upholding our community guidelines," the WhatNot app wrote on Twitter.

"After a comprehensive investigation into Blakesbreaks’ operations we have decided to permanently remove the seller from our platform, including the individual employees involved in misconduct," they announced.

“I understand the optics … I understand how it looks, trust me,” Martinez said according to the New York Post. “I know the type of business I run. … I made a good amount of money — everybody knows, in the NFL — I knew stepping into this was going to have a target on my back.”

Users of the app were not so quick to forgive, as a livestream video captioned the apology video with "Is this an apology for scamming his viewers?!? He only said he won't do it again. So he is admitting to scamming everyone."

Martinez retired from the NFL at 28 years old despite having just signed with the Las Vegas Raiders.

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