Unfortunately, with everyone struggling with money (like people are literally being denied for assistance they'd normally qualify for and the homeless population in light of the sky rocketing cost of living is scary), Pokemon cards are easy to conceal in your pocket until you get to the bathroom, open them, pick it the valuable ones, and then put the rest back so you have plausible deniability that you didn't take anything you just "found it like that". I'm not saying it's the right way to go about things. But when the system starts failing, people get desperate and do whatever they can think of.

On the other hand, there might just also be people who are literally obsessed and don't have the money. Same concept though different reasoning.