Not sure, but my experience is when I was a kid my parents told me later on that they couldn’t really afford to get me a console, but they were able to get one for a fraction of the price by buying one off the back of a truck which was a lot more common back then for lower income neighborhoods. Lots of stolen goods sold locally that way as long as you had the hookup. As for games the only thing I remember was in the 90s some of my asian friends had some awesome toys from chinatown. They had this adapter that plugged into the snes and it played games that were on cards which were basically copied roms so you didnt have to buy full games anymore. My mind was blown at the time. Idk about scalpers, but this was what I remember for that market at the time.