Anura PR Team
TL;DR:
- Ticket scalping happens when resellers buy event tickets, often using bots, and resell them at inflated prices.
- Scalper-bots exploit automated systems, making popular tickets unreachable for real fans.
- While scalping isn’t always illegal, tools like the BOTS Act target the use of bots to bypass purchase limits.
- Recent regulatory crackdowns are pushing platforms and scalpers to change.
- Anura’s fraud detection can help live-event platforms block scalper-bots and protect genuine ticket buyers.
Why Ticket Scalping is More than Just a Price Markup
Ticket scalping isn’t just a nuisance; it’s become a serious fraud issue driven by automation. Scalpers use bots to scoop up thousands of tickets within seconds of a sale opening, then list them on the secondary market at many times the original price. This behavior distorts the market, harms fans, and fuels speculative reselling.
Is Ticket Scalping Illegal?
There’s a lot of confusion around scalping legality. Scalping tickets itself isn’t universally illegal, as laws vary by state and country.
However, using bots to bypass purchase limits is explicitly illegal under U.S. law. The Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016 prohibits using automated programs to buy large numbers of tickets and resell them.
Additionally, various recent regulatory efforts, including an executive order signed in 2025, have ramped up enforcement against bot-driven scalping.
How Ticket Scalpers Use Technology to Abuse the System
Scalpers are increasingly sophisticated, relying on technology like:
- Bots that bypass CAPTCHA and purchase limits to grab tickets in bulk.
- Account spoofing or automation to create multiple buyer accounts.
- Location spoofing or IP masking to avoid regional purchase limits.
- Speculative ticketing, where scalpers list tickets they don’t yet own, or may never, to artificially drive demand.
By disguising their activity with smart bot programs, scalpers can operate at a scale that manual monitoring can’t catch.
Why Scalping Tickets Is Such a Big Risk to Fair Fans
- Fairness & access. Bots make it nearly impossible for regular fans to buy tickets at face value.
- Price gouging. Scalpers jack up prices on high-demand events, sometimes by hundreds of percent.
- Transparency issues. Without regulation, many resellers don’t disclose full pricing, making it hard for buyers to know what they’re really paying.
- Fraud exposure. Some scalpers use stolen or fraudulent tickets, leaving buyers out of luck.
How Anura Can Help Fight Ticket Scalping Fraud
At Anura, we understand how devastating ticket scalping can be for fans, event organizers, and ticket platforms. Our fraud detection technology is perfectly suited to help tackle scalper-bots and fraudulent resellers. Here’s how:
- Our platform identifies and blocks fraudulent traffic in real time, meaning we don’t just flag bad traffic; we block it before it impacts your ticket inventory.
- We trace fraud sources, giving platforms insights into where scalper bots are coming from and helping them take action.
- By integrating Anura’s solution, entertainment companies can protect real fans, preserve event integrity, and ensure more tickets end up with genuine buyers.
Want to learn more? Visit Anura’s Media & Entertainment page to see how our technology defends ticket platforms and helps keep scalpers in check.
