On March 31, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at combating ticket scalpers that buy up tickets and resell them to fans at artificially inflated prices.
Now, the U.S. government is taking its most aggressive step yet to address this problem: in September 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), along with seven states, filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, alleging that the companies colluded with brokers, allowed bulk purchases that violated ticket limits, and engaged in deceptive pricing practices that misled consumers.
What has changed? From Executive Order to Enforcement Action
March’s The executive order represented a 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 order addressed this specifically and directed 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 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 the FTC were ordered to 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.
This lawsuit appears to be a first major test of those directives. Rather than simply punishing rogue scalpers, the FTC and state attorneys general are accusing the dominant ticketing platform itself of enabling and profiting from illegal resale tactics. If successful, this case could force structural reforms in how tickets are sold, purchased, and priced.
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.
The BOTS Act and the Scalper-Bot Problem
The BOTS Act, passed in 2016, makes it illegal to use automated programs to bypass ticket purchase limits, create fake accounts, or circumvent security controls to buy tickets in bulk. Until recently, enforcement targeted individual scalpers and broker networks.
The new lawsuit shifts the focus upstream: the FTC alleges that Ticketmaster knowingly allowed brokers to exploit weaknesses in its system, including the use of bots and multiple accounts, to bypass purchase limits and flood the secondary market. According to the complaint, Ticketmaster then collected fees from these resale transactions, generating $3.7 billion in resale revenue between 2019 and 2024..
What could ticket sales 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 Sightline Cyberfraud Defense 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.
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