Soaring ticket prices cause NC lawmakers to ban the bots

North Carolina is adding new protections aimed at making ticket-buying more transparent. Provisions in the state budget, signed Tuesday by Gov. Josh Stein, require upfront ticket pricing, ban speculative ticket sales, strengthen restrictions on ticket-buying bots and require resale marketplaces to clearly disclose when consumers are buying resale tickets. 

The approval comes less than a month after the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup. Fans waited in virtual ticket queues during the playoffs, only to find many tickets sold out or selling for hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars above face value. 

This ticket provision takes effect Oct. 1, 2026, around the time the Hurricanes begin their Stanley Cup defense. The law applies to all tickets sold or resold for concerts, sporting events and other live entertainment across North Carolina.

The provision is very similar to the bipartisan Senate Bill 849, which sponsors titled the “Real Tickets, Real Fans Act.” The bill advanced in the legislature this year but didn’t make it through the entire legislative process. The bill was then added to the budget, a typical move for many pieces of legislation that aren’t approved as stand-alone bills.

The inclusion of the ‘Real Tickets, Real Fans Act,’ in the state budget is “a real win for Carolina Hurricanes fans and fans who like to go see music,” Democratic co-sponsor Jay Chaudhuri, Wake, told WRAL Wednesday. “It's a win for consumers.”

The original bill was proposed in April, but outcry over ticket purchasing  escalated during the Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup run. Concert fans, too, have complained about the frustrating process in trying to secure tickets to see their favorite bands or performers. . 

Fans told WRAL during the Stanley Cup Final  they were frustrated by the handling of ticket sales by Ticketmaster Entertainment, the California-based ticket-distribution giant that manages ticket sales for the NHL franchise. 

Fans reported entering presale queues as soon as they opened but waited for hours, with some reporting technical issues that sent them to the back of the line. Others said face-value tickets were gone by the time they reached checkout, leaving resale listings that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars more.

Ticketmaster didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the new law, which addresses many of the concerns raised during the Hurricanes sale.

• Ticket sellers must display the total ticket price, including mandatory fees, whenever a ticket price is shown. Sellers aren’t permitted to increase that price during a customer's shopping session except for taxes, physical ticket delivery charges and reasonable processing fees.
• Consumers also must be told whether they are buying from the original ticket issuer or a reseller. If a resale marketplace isn’t the original seller, it must disclose that and provide a link to the issuer's website.
• The law prohibits speculative ticket sales, preventing resellers from advertising tickets they do not possess or have the legal right to sell. It also prohibits selling multiple copies of the same ticket.
• To prevent misleading websites, resellers cannot use an artist's, venue's or event organizer's logos, branding or language that falsely suggests they are an official ticket source.
• The measure also expands North Carolina's anti-bot protections by banning software that bypasses ticket limits, virtual waiting rooms, presale codes or other security measures designed to give consumers a fair chance to buy tickets.
• Violations are considered unfair trade practices under state law. Courts may impose civil penalties of up to $15,000 per day, plus the greater of $1,000 or five times the total ticket price for each illegally listed or sold ticket. Willful violations can bring an additional $10,000 penalty per ticket.

Complaints over high ticket prices for Hurricanes playoff games prompted North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson to seek answers from Ticketmaster. Jackson inquired about how many technical failures occurred during the presale, how many season ticket holders were able to buy tickets and what the company did to detect and block bots. 

Jackson was among more than 30 attorneys general from across the country that previously sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster, its subsidiary. A jury found that Live Nation operated as a monopoly and overcharged customers. Jackson’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Artificial intelligence bots can create fake accounts, mimic human behavior and buy tickets "1,000 times a second," Jeremiah Smith, AI sector lead for the Carolina Cyber Network, told WRAL in June. The bots allow buyers to secure tickets almost instantly and relist them at higher prices.

Ticketmaster says it blocks 20 billion bot attempts each month, and that it rejected 1.6 billion fake account creation attempts last year and canceled thousands of tickets this year for violating its terms of use.

In June, the company referred WRAL to the Canes' team management regarding ticket prices when asked about how ticket prices are set, if bots were detected during the Canes' sale and what the process behind "verified resale" looks like.

"The verified resale tickets you see on our site are listed and priced by individuals,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson said in a statement to WRAL last month. “We authenticate every listing on our site so fans know they’re getting a real ticket.  Other resale sites often allow speculative listings where sellers don’t actually possess the tickets they’re selling. We believe this practice should be banned because it is fundamentally misleading to consumers.” 

The Hurricanes’ chief executive, Brian Fork, told WRAL last month that the team sets a limit of four tickets per purchaser for each game and the Hurricanes “diligently monitor the sales process to ensure that tickets are securely purchased by fans."

The Hurricanes didn’t immediately respond to a WRAL request for comment Wednesday about the potential impact of the new law.

SUBHEAD: Enforcement, federal law

Enforcement is expected to be largely complaint-driven. Consumers, venues, artists and event organizers can report suspected violations to the attorney general, who has authority to investigate whether companies complied with the law's pricing, disclosure and anti-bot requirements.

The state law also works alongside existing federal protections. Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales [BOTS] Act, in 2016, making it illegal to use software that circumvents online ticket purchasing limits or other security measures used by ticket sellers. 

North Carolina's law goes further than the BOTS Act by addressing practices the federal law does not directly regulate, including speculative ticket sales, mandatory fee disclosures, resale marketplace disclosures and misleading branding that suggests a reseller is an official ticket seller.

Because many ticket resale platforms operate nationally, enforcement could involve both state and federal authorities. The North Carolina attorney general could pursue alleged violations affecting North Carolina consumers under state law, while the Federal Trade Commission could investigate allegations of unlawful bot activity or deceptive business practices. The agencies also can coordinate investigations when conduct potentially violates both state and federal statutes.