Ticket bots have corrupted the online ticketing landscape. It’s frustrating for fans, who are eager to see their favorite artists, only to be denied because bots pick up tickets the second they go on sale. It’s frustrating for artists, who want their fans to have a good experience for a fair price. And it’s frustrating for ticketing companies, who want to provide a good ticketing experience to their customers.

Because of ticket bots, also known as ticketing bots, the entire ticketing industry faces substantial challenges in maintaining fair access to events and preserving the integrity of the ticket-buying process. In this article, we’ll dive deep into the world of ticket bots, exploring how they work, their far-reaching effects, and the cutting-edge strategies that already exist to defeat them.

We’ll also look at real-world examples that illustrate the scale of the problem and the progress being made in the fight against bots. We’ll discover how companies like DataDome are leading the charge in protecting the ticketing industry and ensuring that fans have a fair shot at buying tickets for the events they love.

What Are Ticket Bots?

Ticket bots are sophisticated software programs designed to rapidly purchase large quantities of tickets the moment they become available. These digital scalpers operate at superhuman speeds, capable of completing hundreds of transactions in the blink of an eye. As a result, popular events can sell out in seconds, with a significant portion of event tickets ending up in the hands of scalpers and resellers.

How Ticket Bots Work

Ticket bots use a variety of techniques to gain an unfair advantage in the ticket-buying process. To begin with, different ticketing bots target different stages of the ticket-buying process:

• Pre-sale preparation: Some bots create multiple user accounts or take over existing ones to circumvent per-customer ticket limits.
• During the sale: Scalper bots use their speed advantage to quickly navigate to the checkout page, while scraping bots continuously monitor the web for specific ticket types.
• Purchase and resale: Payment bots use stolen credit card information to complete purchases, while others immediately list acquired tickets on secondary markets at inflated prices.

Each bot has ways to accomplish its specific objective and circumvent security obstacles that lie in its way. For example, ticket scalping bots use rapid page refreshing to continuously reload ticketing websites so they can be the first to access newly released tickets. This is often coupled with lightning-fast form auto-filling capabilities, allowing bots to complete purchase forms with pre-loaded information in milliseconds.

Advanced bots have developed methods to bypass common security measures like a CAPTCHA to further streamline their ticket acquisition process. Additionally, these bots can manage multiple sessions simultaneously, operating across numerous browser windows to attempt multiple purchases at once. This multi-pronged approach lets bot operators maximize their chances of securing large quantities of tickets.

And the sophistication of these bots continues to evolve, with some employing machine learning algorithms to adapt to new security measures. It’s an ongoing race between bot operators and ticketing platforms, which only underscores the need for robust, adaptive cybersecurity solutions in the industry.

The Negative Impact of Ticket Bots

The widespread use of ticket bots has far-reaching consequences that negatively affect essentially everyone in the ticketing industry (apart from those operating the bots). For fans, it means:

• Limited access: Genuine fans often find themselves unable to purchase tickets, even seconds after they go on sale. The New York Attorney General gave the example of a broker operating a bot who acquired over 1,000 concert tickets for U2 in a single minute, despite the ticket vendor’s claim of a four-ticket limit.
• Inflated prices: When tickets end up on secondary markets, prices skyrocket. During Taylor Swift’s 2023-2024 Eras Tour, some fans ended up paying seventy times the original selling price for tickets on the secondary market, because it was so hard to find tickets priced at face value.
• Frustration and disillusionment: The difficulty in obtaining tickets at face value can lead to a sense of unfairness and disappointment among loyal fans.

For artists and venues, it means:

• Reputation damage: Fans often blame both the artists and the venues for the lack of ticket availability. It’s almost never their fault, yet it still damages their relationship with their fans and customers.
• Revenue impact: While events may sell out quickly, the inflated secondary market prices don’t benefit the venues or artists. If anything, it may reduce their revenue in the long run, as it could lead people to believe that seeing artists perform live is simply unaffordable.
• Operational challenges: Venues and artists are constantly having to fight or at least comment on the fallout from ticket sales where ticketing bots get away with most of the tickets.

For the ticketing industry, it means:

• Trust erosion: The continued prevalence of ticketing bots, despite it having been a problem for many years already, contributes to a loss of faith in the fairness of the ticketing process.
• Technological arms race: Ticketing companies are forced into a constant battle to develop new security measures, as bot operators continually evolve their tactics.
• Legal and regulatory scrutiny: The industry faces increasing pressure from lawmakers and regulators to address the bot issue, the prime example being Ticketmaster bots.

Real-Life Examples of Ticket Bot Usage

Ticketing fraud is a global fraud. For example, in January 2024 alone, almost six hundred people fell victim to concert ticket scams in Singapore, with losses that amounted to $233,000. Mostly to shows by Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Yoasobi, Joker Xue and Enhypen.

In the UK, roughly 6,000 football fans fell victim to ticketing fraud in the 2023 football season. Some fans lost more than £1,000 to ticketing scams, just over half of which started on Facebook Marketplace with illegitimate or stolen tickets. Fans fall for these scams because they rush through the process, wanting a ticket before it’s gone.

Again in the UK, the grand final for Eurovision 2023 sold out in 36 minutes because of hundreds of bots taking up space in the queue ahead of genuine fans. Tickets that were then put online in secondary marketplaces for a much-inflated price. Similar stories exist for most other large, global events.

The ticketing process for the Eurovision final was marred by ticket bots

These examples not only highlight the pervasive nature of the ticket bot problem but also illustrate its wide-ranging impact on fans, artists, venues, and the entire ticketing industry. From small theaters to stadium tours, no corner of the live entertainment world seems immune to the disruptive influence of these digital scalpers.

Legal and Regulatory Efforts to Combat Ticket Bots

The problem is widespread enough that governments around the world have begun to take legislative action:

• In the United States, Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act in 2016, making it illegal to use computer software to circumvent ticket purchase limits and bypass venues’ ticketing rules.
• In the European Union, as of 2022, it has become illegal to use ticket bots in all E.U. member states. The legislation prohibits bypassing technical measures put in place by primary sellers to ensure fair access to tickets.
• The United Kingdom passed a law in 2017 that outlawed the use of ticket bots to exceed ticket purchase limits. It also requires secondary sellers to provide unique ticket numbers with seat details.
• In Canada, while there’s no nationwide legislation yet, several provinces have passed or are considering anti-bot laws. Ontario, for example, banned the resale of bot-purchased tickets at more than 50% above face value.

Despite these legislative efforts, enforcement has been largely ineffective. Countries simply do not have the resources to follow up, prosecute, and enforce the federal laws on ticketing bots.

Technological Solutions to Fight Ticket Bots

Given the limitations of legislative approaches, the ticketing industry should turn to technological solutions to combat bots:

• Advanced Bot Detection: If there’s one magic bullet to solve the ticketing problem, this is it. Companies like DataDome have built sophisticated solutions that analyze every request to a website, mobile app, and API, to both identify and block automated requests with malicious intent. These solutions often do so in milliseconds without impacting user experience.

Datadome Bot Protection (Leader in The Forrester Wave™ Bot Management Software)

• Virtual Waiting Rooms: Large ticketing platforms like Ticketmaster have begun implementing virtual waiting rooms to randomize entry and neutralize ticket bots’ speed advantage.
• Mobile Ticketing: By moving to mobile-only tickets on specifically designed apps, companies can reduce fraud by making good use of a phone’s unique security features, for example with a QR code that appears only hours before the concert so tickets cannot be sold on secondary marketplaces.
• Biometric Verification: Some ticketing systems now incorporate biometric data like mouse movements or mobile swipe patterns to distinguish between bots and human users browsing for tickets.
• Blockchain Technology: Some companies are exploring blockchain-based ticketing systems, because tickets on a blockchain cannot be altered in any way. A solution like this can significantly reduce fake ticket fraud.

The Future of Ticketing and Bot Prevention

Although the ticketing industry is currently in a dire state, several promising trends are emerging. There’s more and more collaboration between venues, ticketing companies, and cybersecurity companies. This partnership allows for more effective information sharing and the development of comprehensive anti-bot strategies that address vulnerabilities across the entire ticketing ecosystem.

Personalized ticketing is also gaining traction as a potential solution to reduce scalping opportunities. By tying tickets to specific individuals and making them non-transferable, the hope is to create a system that’s more resistant to bot exploitation.

Similarly, fan verification programs are becoming more sophisticated and widespread. These systems aim to authenticate genuine fans before allowing ticket purchases, creating an additional layer of protection against automated buying.

On the regulatory front, we can expect to see more nuanced and comprehensive legislation addressing the ever-evolving tactics of bot operators. As lawmakers gain a deeper understanding of the technological aspects of the problem, they’ll be better equipped to craft effective policies that can be meaningfully enforced.

Conclusion

The battle against ticket bots is far from over, but solutions to significantly reduce ticketing fraud already exist. DataDome blocks malicious bots at every stage of the ticketing process, across websites, mobile apps, and APIs.

It does so in milliseconds with a false positive rate <0.01%. Additionally, DataDome is a lightweight solution that fits neatly into your existing tech stack. It’s why DataDome was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ for Bot Management Software, Q3 2024.

Ultimately, the goal is clear: to restore the joy and excitement of securing tickets to events. With powerful technological solutions like DataDome, we can look forward to a future where ticket bots are no longer a problem.