U.S. Government Cracks Down on Ticket Scalping

On March 31, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at combatting ticket scalpers that buy up tickets and resell them to fans at artificially inflated prices.

What has changed?

The executive order represents a much stronger approach to the issues of ticket scalping and price gouging. As part of the statement, it notes that:

“While the BOTS Act—meant to stop scalpers from using bots to purchase tickets—has been on the books for over 8 years, the FTC has only once taken action to enforce this law.” 

The new order addresses this specifically and directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to:

“Rigorously enforce the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act and promote its enforcement by state consumer protection authorities.”

That’s in addition to directing the FTC to work with the Attorney General to ensure that competition laws are appropriately enforced in the concert and entertainment industry; ensuring price transparency at all stages of the ticket purchasing process (including the secondary ticketing market); and to evaluate and to take appropriate action where needed to prevent “unfair, deceptive and anti-competitive conduct” in the secondary market.

The President has also directed the Secretary of the Treasury and Attorney General to ensure that ticket scalpers are operating in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code and other applicable laws.

Finally, the Treasury, the Department of Justice and FTC will deliver a report within 180 days that summarizes actions taken to address these issues, as well as further recommendations for any needed legislation or regulations.

In short, ticket scalpers are firmly in the US government’s crosshairs.

How does ticket scalping happen?

Have you ever tried to get tickets to a famous band and they were sold out in seconds? Ticket scalping is often automated at scale with the use of bots. It ensures that the scalpers can grab all of the tickets before real people get a chance.

Tickets are then resold at significantly higher prices (up to 70 times the normal price, according to the US government factsheet).

Not only are bots leaving ticketing platforms with disappointed customers, but bots can also negatively impact site performance and raise infrastructure costs with their intense levels of site traffic.

What can ticket platforms do to combat scalper bots?

Stopping large-scale, automated ticket scalping requires a sophisticated bot management solution that can filter bots out of the ticket buying process.  With the new measures set out in the executive order, ticket platforms should review how to protect themselves from bots to align themselves with the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.

HUMAN’s Application Protection combines advanced detection models with multiple techniques including intelligent fingerprinting, behavioral analysis, mouse movement and browser analysis, and the ability to block bots at the very first request. 

HUMAN customers also get deep insight into the behavior of attackers on their websites with actionable learnings to help improve their security posture against scalper bots.

Ready to learn more? Register for a demonstration or read how HUMAN helped Hibbett Sports protect its online hype sales and allow real people—not bots—to purchase popular sneakers.