Why is scalping online legal

Your cousin goes online to TicketsNow. Sure enough, the site has a great seat for the Chicago Janet Jackson concert, but it costs four times what it would have if your cousin had been able to get it at the box office.

But when you try to buy it, this message pops up on the computer screen: "New York State statutes currently prohibit us from selling tickets for events taking place in New York State to New York residents. In New York State, reselling a ticket for more than 10 percent above its box office price is considered scalping and is prohibited, whether it is done online, from an office or on the street.

It is also illegal to hawk tickets at any price within 1, feet from where the show is taking place. Though an anti-ticket scalping law governing the resale of tickets has been on the books, in one form or another, for 80 years, scalping for New York sports events, Broadway shows and concerts remains pervasive.

So, if you really want a good seat to the New York Janet Jackson concert you have two options left: 1 Since Illinois law does not cap ticket resale prices, you can get your cousin to buy you the ticket to the concert at Madison Square Garden, assuming you can afford the exorbitant going rate.

Clearly, New York's law -- designed to keep scalpers away from venues and insure ticket prices remain affordable to the average fan -- needs a tune up.

But how to fix it as it comes up for renewal this month is unclear. Some advocate scrapping the price cap completely. Others claim eliminating the cap will not lower ticket prices. After all, your cousin from Chicago, where scalping is legal, paid a lot to see Janet Jackson there. The president of the League of American Theaters and Producers has called New York's anti ticket scalping law "unrealistic.

Big venues like Madison Square Garden are most concerned about rampant street scalping and have pushed for increasing the no scalp zone from 1, to 1, feet. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says the root of the ticket problem is "ice," a slang term for bribes given in exchange for tickets at the box office, and fraudulent promoters who divert the best seats to networks of connected brokers. He favors cracking down on this big time corruption but letting the free market dictate prices for scalped tickets.

Others favor keeping the law until fraud and bribery are eliminated, arguing the free market is not really free if premium scalpers control the best seats and manipulate prices.

Some economists and policy makers agree the free market approach is the right solution. They argue that box office prices are too low and that if fans were not willing to pay higher prices, there would be no scalping. Scalpers, they argue, are paid to wait in line by people who cannot do so. Ticket brokers and some legislators have added that uncapping New York's ticket resale price will bring brokers and their tax dollars back to New York, lead to an increase in ticket supply and lower prices.

But supporters of a cap on the price of tickets being resold point out that tickets were neither cheaper nor more plentiful when New Jersey experimented with a free market in tickets between and Some economists argue the free market would hurt the long term economic growth of the entertainment industry as it steadily loses the fans who cannot afford scalped tickets. The affluent fans would stand to gain most.

Consumer advocates believe average fans could not compete with the corporate accounts for good seats. There has been much noise recently about scalping group CrepChiefNotify and their success in securing thousands of the latest gaming consoles in time for the holidays, namely the Playstation5 and X Box Series X, to re-sell at greatly inflated prices.

However, this practice of purchasing a highly coveted item with the intention of selling it for way beyond its RRP or face value has been around for many many years.

Is it illegal? The answer is not as cut and dried as it may appear at first glance. While morally reprehensible in the eyes of most, whether scalping is legal or not is down to a whole host of factors, including the state in which you want to do it. While there is no federal law against scalping, 15 states, including Arkansas, California, Delaware, Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin all ban the practice in some form, with most labelling it as a misdemeanour that carries fines and up to 1 year in jail.

However, if you take a closer look at the statutes, you will notice that the laws are actually only in very select circumstances that are easily circumvented. Taking concert ticket scalping in Arizona as an example, the practice is only prohibited within feet of the entrance to the venue. This means that a scalper is free to set whatever price they want, provided they are feet and one inch away from the door.

If the official website for the event sells out, these sites promote themselves as a second chance. Efforts to make the practice illegal are overshadowed by such websites.

Those in favor of the legality of ticket scalping say that going through brokers creates a safe and reliable way to get tickets. They state that it creates a fair, open market that both parties are agreeable toward. Those who want to make the practice illegal argue that the system favors the wealthy and prompts scalpers to buy large quantities of tickets strictly for resale. If the reseller buys up the tickets, fans may not have the opportunity to purchase tickets at their original cost.

When scalpers buy large quantities of tickets, they take the risk of failing to resell all of them, losing money. People who attend concerts or sporting events are usually emotionally invested in that event, and resellers take advantage of those feelings.