You may have noticed from time to time when you attend an event that there are folks outside the stadium or arena with extra tickets to sell, or sometimes buy. Commonly called ticket scalping, financially you may get a pretty good haircut if you buy tickets from these people on game or performance day. Is it legal for these sellers to make absurd profits at your expense? The short answer is … sometimes. Ticket reselling used to be illegal in Missouri but a repeal of the law now makes it theoretically legal in both Kansas and Missouri. BUT, municipalities may enact their own ordinances such as the one Kansas City, Mo., has adopted which makes it unlawful to sell or resell a ticket for more than face value. Kansas has created a prohibition against tickets of any kind being sold on state owned property. Allegedly they have undercover agents secretly policing KU basketball games. Other cities may adopt ordinances prohibiting the practice as well.
A federal ticket act has been introduced in Congress but it is not selling well to date. Perhaps Congressmen should be able to vote through Ticketmaster.
Profits on these sales can reach the stratosphere, causing some professional franchises to claim that their ticket is simply a license between the club and the ticket buyer which is non-transferrable. Therefore, even StubHub should not be able to resell without consent of the professional team. On the other hand, StubHub has booths right outside of Yankee Stadium where fans can pick up tickets. You can’t buy the tickets at the booth, but you can step to the side and order them on a cell phone and then walk 20 feet and pick them up.
So, is it legal to buy or sell tickets just outside a game? Maybe. The jury is still out on this multibillion-dollar practice. Just don’t get scalped.