Ticketmaster Says It’s Cracking Down on Scalpers Amid FTC Lawsuit
In response to a federal lawsuit alleging deceptive practices and collusion with resellers, the company says it’s investing in AI detection and account verification to limit ticket resales.
Ticketmaster has revealed a series of new measures to curb ticket scalping amid a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission accusing the ticketing giant of colluding with resellers to artificially inflate prices.
In a letter to U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Ben Ray Luján obtained by Forbes, Live Nation executive vice president Daniel M. Wall outlined steps to “increase the percentage of tickets going to real fans.” The company said it would limit brokers to one verified account using Social Security or taxpayer ID numbers, deploy AI tools to detect and cancel bot purchases and shut down its TradeDesk inventory software, which the FTC alleges functions as a tool that enables scalpers.
Ticketmaster reportedly disputed the FTC’s claims, calling them “categorically false” and arguing it has invested over $1 billion in bot prevention, blocking 8.7 billion bots in April 2025 alone. The FTC’s complaint, filed with seven states, alleges the company violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act and “triple dipped” on fees by collecting from the original sale, the reseller and the resale buyer.
This isn’t the first time Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been in hot water, following a separate Justice Department lawsuit from 2024 accusing the two of operating as a monopoly. While Live Nation continues to deny any wrongdoing, the company’s proposed reforms appear to be its most concerted attempt yet to rebuild trust with live music fans frustrated by high resale prices and mounting platform fees.
The DOJ’s lawsuit remains ongoing at the time of this writing.
