You've probably been through it. Tickets for a concert are going on sale online at ten am. You're waiting patiently in front of your computer at nine, and when the virtual door opens at ten, you click on get tickets, But there are no tickets left, except, of course, for exorbitant markups on resale sites. How does that happen? It's the ticket box, computer software that cuts the line, overrides the ticket seller's website, and purchases almost all the available
tickets before mere humans can get to them. Hamilton's creator and star a Linn Manuel Miranda has been on something of a crusade to stop the bots. It's hard to get tickets to anything, but while you're typing in your capture code, that bot has already got the ticket you're trying to get. And it's just not fair. Now New York has a new law that makes it a crime to use ticket boats, with fines of up to FI
dollars as well as a year in jail. But how much impact will this law have on those steep ticket resales? Joining us is Gerald Silverman, staff correspondent for Bloomberg b Na Gerald, the use of ticket bots was already subject to find in New York. So how much will this law make a difference. That's right. The law does three key things. It increases the current civil penalties for using bots. It also creates criminal penalties for using bots, and it
makes a ticket reseller libel under the law. So, for example, a ticket reseller like StubHub would be liabel for criminal and civil penalties if it knowingly resell the tickets that were obtained through box. Well, how, speaking of Generald, speaking of the things like you know, StubHub and other resellers, you know, other than the speed and efficiency with which this happens, how is it really different these ticket bots than what these purportedly legal resellers are doing. Well, there's
a number of different players in the ticket industry. There's ticket vendors like Ticketmaster, and then there's the brokers, and then there's the ticket resell platforms like StubHub. And I would want to emphasize that not all ticket brokers use bots. In fact, the National Association of Ticket Brokers supported the New York law and they oppose bots. So the laws
really aimed at getting rid of bad actors. So to the you asked what the impact would be, So to the extent that bad actors are deterred by criminal penalties, and yes, I think the law will have an impact. The it's a class A misdemeanor, which means that that someone could face up to a year in jail or criminal penalties of up to a thousand dollars per violation. But you have to keep in mind two things. One
is there's a lot of money at stake. It's a multibillion dollar industry, and the civil penalties right now are viewed by some people as simply the cost of doing business. So, for example, the Attorney General found that a single bot operator made one point four million dollars in two thousand fourteen, and a large scale operator with multiple bots made forty two million dollars in two thousand thirteen. So there's there's
big bucks at stake here. And the second thing to keep in mind is that there are other factors at play. So the Attorney General, for example, found that half of all tickets are reserved are not available for the public, so the other half are withheld, made available to sponsors, promoters, agents, credit card holders, fan clubs, and season ticket holders. And the law would not address this issue. That's why you always see celebrities going to these plays. They don't have
any problem getting tickets. Gerald, the law doesn't addressed scalpers or ticket sellers that are out of state or overseas. Will national legislation be needed, That's a good question. So there are about twelve states right now that have some kind of penalties for using bots. But I think where this law could be important is in building momentum for a federal bill. So there's a federal bill right now that passed the House and the past the Senate Commerce Committee.
Whether it passes by the end of the year is uncertain at this point. Gerald, you mentioned that you know a lot of the companies that sell tickets, you know, the big companies that resell tickets, like Ticketmaster against or were for this law there against the bots. Why is that? Why? Why wouldn't they just want to have bots of their own, the ticket resellers. Well, actually so StubHub did support the
law as well as Ticketmaster. And because I think this this law is aimed at the bad actors, and not all the ticket brokers are bad actors, and and some do it legitimately, so they want a level playing field. Just quickly drilled in about a minute, So how will they find these bad actors. Well, the the Attorney General, who has been very active on this, will be in
charge of enforcing the law. And in fact the Attorney General did an investigation earlier this year which was really one of the prime influences on the law, and it was it was not just about the ticket bots, but it was also about the markup in prices. So the average markup and the resale market now is about and some can go as high as a thousand percent. Well, I know from looking for those Adele tickets that they are incredibly exorbited. Thanks so much, Gerald Silverman's staff correspondent
for Bloomberg b NA. I guess, Michael, we will find out in the future whether we can get those tickets