Cait Stoddard October 20th, 2025 - 11:32 AM
According to Forbes.com, Ticketmaster has said they would bar users and ticket brokers from making multiple accounts and require resellers to use taxpayer ID verification and deploy AI tools for “faster assessment and cancellation of bot-purchased tickets” amid a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit accusing the platform of scheming with resellers to increase prices.
In an attempt to “increase the percentage of tickets going to real fans,” Ticketmaster will limit users and ticket brokers to only one account, which will enforce through Social Security number or other taxpayer ID verification and AI-powered screening that will cancel scalper accounts, the company said in a letter to Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.
The letter, penned by Live Nation executive vice president Daniel M. Wall and shared with Forbes by Live Nation, also said Ticketmaster will not allow ticket brokers to exceed the platform’s ticket resale limits, a company policy the Federal Trade Commission accused it of failing to enforce. Ticketmaster will also shut down TradeDesk, an inventory tool meant to allow resellers to track their ticket sales, after the FTC accused it of being a tool to help ticket scalpers scam customers—though Live Nation denied this allegation and said it would shut the tool down to avoid harm.
Live Nation disputed other allegations the FTC made in a September lawsuit, calling the allegation that Ticketmaster allegedly colludes with ticket resellers to hike prices “categorically false,” noting it would make “no economic sense” because ticket resales account for just 3 percent of Live Nation’s revenue.
The company denied the FTC’s allegation that Live Nation and Ticketmaster violate the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, a 2016 law meant to stop bots from reselling tickets at high prices, stating it has invested more than $1 billion in bot prevention and blocked 8.7 billion bots in April 2025 alone.
