MARKET SAVVY : Hasbro in Deal to Add Pokemon Trading Cards to Its Toy Chest : Acquisitions: It’s buying games company Wizards of the Coast for $325 million, and getting dozens of retail stores in the process.

Pokemon trading cards, so popular that stores are finding it hard to keep them in stock, are joining Monopoly, Star Wars toys and Tonka trucks in the toy lineup of Hasbro Inc.

The nation’s second-largest toy maker said Thursday it is buying Wizards of the Coast, a games company that not only sells Pokemon cards but also owns best-selling game Magic: The Gathering, as well as Dungeons & Dragons.

The $325-million deal is the latest acquisition in Hasbro’s steady expansion into the games industry. This time, Hasbro also is getting dozens of shops with the potential to sell more of its goods.

Chris Byrne, a toy consultant, said Hasbro is reshaping itself into a children’s entertainment industry that can more effectively compete with video stores and movie theaters.

“What’s really cool about what Hasbro is doing is they are not walking away from their basic board games . . . but they are walking aggressively into the new kind of gaming,” Byrne said.

Hasbro’s brands include Playskool, Kenner, Tonka, Parker Bros., Tiger and Milton Bradley. The company had $3.3 billion in sales last year.

Wizards’ products are expected to generate $400 million in sales this year, compared with $150 million last year, according to an analysis by Salomon Smith Barney. The investment firm estimates Pokemon cards alone will account for about $225 million in sales in 1999.

Pokemon is an inexpensive card game that debuted as a low-tech video game and burgeoned into an empire. It was started in Japan by Nintendo as a Game Boy video game in which players find, capture, collect and train 150 pet monsters.

Last year, Hasbro obtained rights from Nintendo to make and market toys based on the Pokemon cartoon TV show.

In addition to game cards, Wizards also is a leading publisher of fantasy and science-fiction literature and owns almost 70 retail game stores. The company also sponsors thousands of tournaments around the country and owns a 3,800-square-foot entertainment center-arcade in Seattle.

Peter Adkison, who founded Wizards in 1990 and is president and chief executive of the company, will continue to run the business, which will remain based in Seattle.

Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, R.I., said that an antitrust review already has been completed. It said the shareholders who control more than two-thirds of Wizards stock have agreed to approve the deal, which it expects to conclude by the end of this month.

In trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, Hasbro shares declined 31 cents, closing at $24.50 a share.