Winnipeg Police arrest Scalpers (Jets Ticket Scalpers)

[jigglysquishy]

Everyone in here is missing out on a key issue in regards to scalping. The difference between finite properties and infinite properties.

Jets tickets are finite. Only 15,000 of them exist in the whole world. Its also a case of demand far exceeding supply. Person A buying a Jets ticket directly stops person B from buying a ticket.

Bread is an infinite property. Person A buying bread has almost no hindrance on person B buying bread. Enough bread is made to satisfy every person who wishes to pay fair market value.

Such is no the case for Jets tickets.

To those arguing against scalping laws I propose you this. Without scalping laws, legally this situation could occur.

A person, using various alias and an umbrella network, could conceivably buy every single Jets Season Ticket. At the point he could demand anything he wanted for tickets. $5, $500, $50,000. Hell, the guy could be a dick a hold onto all tickets and no one would be able to see live NHL hockey in Winnipeg.

Even ignoring the unlikely scenario, you could very realistically run into a case where every single season ticket is owned by scalpers. At that point pricing leaves TNSE's hands and enters the black market.

 

[PensFan6687]

Scalping is perfectly legal...as long as it's not on the premesis of the event.
This is a dick move by TNSE, sticking it to the fans. Tut, tut.

No, it's illegal in the Province of Manitoba. So you're incorrect. Some parts of Canada it's not illegal.

 

[wjhl2009fan]

What about "convenience fees"?

Every event (hockey, wrestling, concerts) advertises ticket prices. But you can never buy a ticket for that price anywhere. Even if you show up at the venue and pay, the "convenience fee" and "service charge" is levied.

Therefore I would like to see the cops charge Ticketmaster with a crime.

Otherwise, I would like all scalpers to simply allocate their services as "convenience fees".

There is a bit of a difference between having a convenience fee and asking double even triple the amount of market value of the ticket which some scalpers do.Your not going to see alot of scalper stay with in 10% of the market value of the ticket there going to want to make as much money as possible.

 

[AllByDesign]

I will apologize in advance, as I have not read all of the posts and I may repeat a prior sentiment.

This scneario is the ideal reasoning for the anti-scalping laws that exist in Manitoba. We can all agree that demand supercedes supply when it comes to the availability of seats at the MTS centre for Winnipeg Jets hockey games. In free enterprise, such a mdel would demand an average ticket price of $500. The problem is that the team was required to pre-sell "x" amount of season tickets to win board approval to finalize their purchase deal. If the team was basing their price structure on walk-up demand, they could charge inflationary pricing and still sell out. This would satisfy the market, and the demand. This platform would not satisfy the board of Governors to consumate their purchase.

Thus in order to accomplish the goal of selling the required amount of season tickets they had to structure a pricing plan that flies in the face of supply/demand ratios. As owners of the product, TNSE deserves to reap the benefit of all profitability scenarios. The laws in place allow the team to accomplish their goals in season tickets, and be protected from outsiders profiting from the shortcomings placed upon them by the league to hit a season ticket sales benchmark.

I am a huge believer in the free market, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. You want an NHL team back in your city, the citizens are not permitted to profit from this, other than the fact they have an NHL team to cheer for.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Scalping should be illegal everywhere. Free market or not, I don't believe that a ticket purchaser has the right to profit off of a product that is not theirs and that business has every right to control the pricing of their events however they please as it is their building and their product.

 

[Seanconn*]

Everyone in here is missing out on a key issue in regards to scalping. The difference between finite properties and infinite properties.

Jets tickets are finite. Only 15,000 of them exist in the whole world. Its also a case of demand far exceeding supply. Person A buying a Jets ticket directly stops person B from buying a ticket.

Bread is an infinite property. Person A buying bread has almost no hindrance on person B buying bread. Enough bread is made to satisfy every person who wishes to pay fair market value.

Such is no the case for Jets tickets.

To those arguing against scalping laws I propose you this. Without scalping laws, legally this situation could occur.

A person, using various alias and an umbrella network, could conceivably buy every single Jets Season Ticket. At the point he could demand anything he wanted for tickets. $5, $500, $50,000. Hell, the guy could be a dick a hold onto all tickets and no one would be able to see live NHL hockey in Winnipeg.

Even ignoring the unlikely scenario, you could very realistically run into a case where every single season ticket is owned by scalpers. At that point pricing leaves TNSE's hands and enters the black market.

haha, an interesting way to show why there is a definitely a need for consumers to be protected, by making scalping illegal.

However, that type of scenario isn't exactly stopped from happening JUST because scalping is illegal.

do you really think TNSE would sell all 15k tickets to some other person/firm, just so they can ask a higher price?

TNSE and any other team has full rights to sell tickets to whoever they want, and restrict people from buying more than a certain amount of tickets, or require some sort of assurance from people buying more than 10+ seats that they aren't being bought purely for the purpose of resale.

and if you've taken an economics class, you know quite well there are no such things as infinite resources/ infinite property. Your example of Bread isn't exactly helping your cause for scalping being bad.

How do you think Bread gets made? Farmers grow grain and sell it for a profit, grain is sold on an open market, and is bought up by firms of various sizes, who buy said grain based on various prices, mostly depending on when they are buying, and how much they are buying. People, and Companies then buy the grain and turn it into flour, or other products. but let's just stick with flour. Flour is than sold to stores, bakeries, etc, (at largely varying rates, based on how much is being sold, and the market rate)

But ultimately, that flour is sold to a wide range of bakers, some large factory scale bakeries, and some small scale.

the finished product, bread, is the result of a series of exchanges where grain was sold for at a profit.

Some bread is higher priced (just like some seats at a hockey game are)

Some bread is old, undesirable, and cheap (nose bleed section, playing against the Florida Panthers)


If someone wants to buy tickets from a hockey game, just to sell it for a higher price, they should be completely free to do so.

It's essentially like buying stock options, both tickets and stock options are worthless after the date they expire, yet people make a lot of money selling stock options for a profit, and some people get thrown in jail for selling tickets outside of an arena.

If we live in a country that claims to support free market economic policy, then the legal system, and actions of police should reflect that.

Just like corporations are free to buy and sell things for a profit, people should be entirely free to do so too, unless we live in a communist society.

imo, selling your ticket for a profit outside of the arena, is no different than trading stocks in a company for profit.

both should be completely illegal. except, scalpers get arrested, and some irresponsible bankers/ brokers, get bonus's and golden parachutes.

companies don't have the right to "control" the price of stock of their company to be sold in an open market, they can try to turn a profit to increase investment in the company, which will help raise the price of the stock... but market forces basically entirely determine the price of a companies stock.

and considering Sport Teams are essentially corporations, the price of their tickets should be free to be sold for more or less the price they were bought for. It's utterly asinine to put a scalper in jail, unless he is physically threatening people into buying his or her overpriced ticket, (which you are NOT forced to buy)

 

[AllByDesign]

Seanconn, I believe you are missing the point with your post. If we were speaking of game-day tickets, you would have a point. On the individual games, it is open market. The Season tickets are a horse of a different colour. Season ticket purchases have a contract involved. All owners of the season ticket packages provide a covenant in which they cannot be sold for re-sale unless sold at "face value". Even in an open market, contracts must be honored.

When you add the provincial law on scalping with the initial agreement by the season ticket holder, you have an iron-clad scenario preventing you from profiting from your season ticket transaction... commodity trading not-withstanding. This would also would pass your economics class.

 

[Seanconn*]

Seanconn, I believe you are missing the point with your post. If we were speaking of game-day tickets, you would have a point. On the individual games, it is open market. The Season tickets are a horse of a different colour. Season ticket purchases have a contract involved. All owners of the season ticket packages provide a covenant in which they cannot be sold for re-sale unless sold at "face value". Even in an open market, contracts must be honored.

When you add the provincial law on scalping with the initial agreement by the season ticket holder, you have an iron-clad scenario preventing you from profiting from your season ticket transaction... commodity trading not-withstanding. This would also would pass your economics class.

contracts on season ticket holders not being able to sell them for more than face value, are totally bogus, and are ignored all the time though.

I'm just talking about the scalping being illegal aspect though. Firms like TNSE can attach conditional contract's to the sale of of season tickets all they like. But, it still won't stop all abuses from happening.

The point of scalping is to make a profit, not altruism. If someone wants to scalp tickets to a game, they should be perfectly free to do so. Consumer rights are fragrantly abused in other sectors of the economy, so why the dire need to protect sports fans from getting ripped off buying overpriced tickets to an event, that they REALLY want to go to, and are willing to pay for.

it's ridiculous, that scalping is illegal, and enforcing such laws is just a waste of tax payer resources.

 

[Confucius]

contracts on season ticket holders not being able to sell them for more than face value, are totally bogus, and are ignored all the time though.

I'm just talking about the scalping being illegal aspect though. Firms like TNSE can attach conditional contract's to the sale of of season tickets all they like. But, it still won't stop all abuses from happening.

The point of scalping is to make a profit, not altruism. If someone wants to scalp tickets to a game, they should be perfectly free to do so. Consumer rights are fragrantly abused in other sectors of the economy, so why the dire need to protect sports fans from getting ripped off buying overpriced tickets to an event, that they REALLY want to go to, and are willing to pay for.

it's ridiculous, that scalping is illegal, and enforcing such laws is just a waste of tax payer resources.

If someone is willing to pay, they are not getting ripped off. Practically all things have different values to different people. Just look at any memorabilia auction.

 

[AllByDesign]

contracts on season ticket holders not being able to sell them for more than face value, are totally bogus, and are ignored all the time though.

I'm just talking about the scalping being illegal aspect though. Firms like TNSE can attach conditional contract's to the sale of of season tickets all they like. But, it still won't stop all abuses from happening.

The point of scalping is to make a profit, not altruism. If someone wants to scalp tickets to a game, they should be perfectly free to do so. Consumer rights are fragrantly abused in other sectors of the economy, so why the dire need to protect sports fans from getting ripped off buying overpriced tickets to an event, that they REALLY want to go to, and are willing to pay for.

it's ridiculous, that scalping is illegal, and enforcing such laws is just a waste of tax payer resources.

I understand that your points on the matter come from the land of the practical. In that light you are correct. Its legislation that is difficult and expensive to police, while yielding a benefit to very few parties. Many look at Marijuana legislation in the same light.

The problem is that you had mention "economics" in a prior post, and that subject rarely plays in the land of the practical.

 

[Fugu]

Very interesting discussion.

Everyone in here is missing out on a key issue in regards to scalping. The difference between finite properties and infinite properties.

Jets tickets are finite. Only 15,000 of them exist in the whole world. Its also a case of demand far exceeding supply. Person A buying a Jets ticket directly stops person B from buying a ticket.
<snip for brevity>
To those arguing against scalping laws I propose you this. Without scalping laws, legally this situation could occur.

A person, using various alias and an umbrella network, could conceivably buy every single Jets Season Ticket. At the point he could demand anything he wanted for tickets. $5, $500, $50,000. Hell, the guy could be a dick a hold onto all tickets and no one would be able to see live NHL hockey in Winnipeg.

Even ignoring the unlikely scenario, you could very realistically run into a case where every single season ticket is owned by scalpers. At that point pricing leaves TNSE's hands and enters the black market.

Interesting hypothetical situation that actually ignores a real market reality. He is free to charge anything he wants, but what he gets back will be based on what people are willing/able to pay (hence the ethical debates within ethical drug industry).

Ultimately, that is the only consideration in establishing a real market price.

The other aspect can be controlled by the supplier, in limiting how many tickets can go to any one buyer. Trying to corner a market has other, perhaps legal, ramifications that fall outside any valid argument for making all of 'scalping' illegal.

Seanconn, I believe you are missing the point with your post. If we were speaking of game-day tickets, you would have a point. On the individual games, it is open market. The Season tickets are a horse of a different colour. Season ticket purchases have a contract involved. All owners of the season ticket packages provide a covenant in which they cannot be sold for re-sale unless sold at "face value". Even in an open market, contracts must be honored.

Why isn't the dumping of tickets outlawed? Is scalping after any form of resale, or just the form that seeks a higher price?

Why is this justifiable?

When you add the provincial law on scalping with the initial agreement by the season ticket holder, you have an iron-clad scenario preventing you from profiting from your season ticket transaction... commodity trading not-withstanding. This would also would pass your economics class.

I'm surprised you would miss two key but dissimilar issues.

The first is the question of scalping, which you assume is only for a value higher than the initial sale price. The second is the unilaterally produced contract between the ticket seller and any buyer.

Why should public laws be created that essentially help a corporation (for profit entity) enforce its policies and strategy on pricing?

Companies who come up with product licenses found a creative method for trying to retain control over something they indeed are selling as a product. They wish to control anything that happens to be a product after it leaves their legal possession. One must note that in industries where there are numerous competitors offering similar goods and where it is fairly easy to switch, you won't find product licenses. Car companies don't license a car to you. In fact, they probably don't want anything to do with the car once you buy it. Software companies are quite good at exploiting this technique because, starting with a system platform or operating system, it becomes extremely difficult to make changes, or to find compatible products. That's why you never actually own the software on your computer (among other reasons). This is an interesting dynamic given that you don't buy a very expensive software packages (e.g., engineering design tools), you essentially lease them. A license key is granted so that if you don't pay your annual fee, the package stops working.

So tickets aren't really a product any more, just a license to enter a building according to some of the ideas put forth here. That a supplier of the tickets makes that claim doesn't mean it's really a valid one, in a pure sense. Furthermore, the supplier of the tickets doesn't really care who enters the building. They're very happy if they have 18K tickets, that 18K get sold and 18K people show up.

Where exactly is the problem?

In most cases, ticket sellers will do their best to determine an appropriate price for each tier, designed to make sure that they can sell X amount ahead of time. What they may leave on the table in profit/price is traded off against risk-- that they will be unable to sell all 18K tickets right before each event. This is conscious choice and business strategy. Furthermore, in exchange for enticing Season Ticket Holders to commit to an entire season, they may choose to reduce the sale price, again done to reduce their exposure and effort required to make this level of sales 41 times per year. They understand that not all the games will have an equal value to its customers (in terms of desirability of opponent to see), so they settle on a good average price knowing some games will draw far better than others. It's all about risk to them ultimately.

It's also possible that they do a very poor job of measuring demand, and thus setting price. Sometimes it can be due to expectations that some teams would be far better than they turn out to be (injuries, coaching changes, etc.). So again, the season ticket pricing takes several variables into consideration, but ultimately it's not just about good will or pleasing the BOG, but about mitigating risk and realizing that demand varies by game or point in the season (demand being higher at the end if the playoffs are a factor, and lower if not).

With the advent of variable pricing that many teams are considering for single game tickets, it's going to be much harder for scalpers to actually compete, in my opinion, assuming you do have single game tickets available. The only people responsible for allowing that gray market to set up in the first place are the guys who set the original price. Like I said above, if they are willing to assume a greater risk, they can limit the number of season tickets they offer; and/or charge more. Clearly demand exceeds supply by many orders of magnitude in Winnipeg right now. Going after scalpers does not excuse TNSE for missing the mark on pricing, or willfully choosing to offset some risks and build good will as a longterm corporate strategy.

 

[Killion]

Going after scalpers does not excuse TNSE for missing the mark on pricing, or willfully choosing to offset some risks and build good will as a longterm corporate strategy.

Excellent post & very good points. Obviously TNSE wouldve' had to have given much thought to ticket pricing not only from a contemporaneous perspective in relation to what their colleagues in Calgary, Vancouver & elsewhere are charging; but so too with respect to the transition from AHL-NHL pricing in offering their Moose STH's first right of refusal on Jets tickets. I dont think theres much question that they came down on the side of prudence, however, to then ask the Winnipeg Police Services to enforce their act of "good will" strikes me as being both disingenuous & hypocritical. You simply cannot effectively enforce anti-scalping legislation short of the installation of Iris Recognition Security Systems at every entrance to the MTS.

 

[wjhl2009fan]

haha, an interesting way to show why there is a definitely a need for consumers to be protected, by making scalping illegal.

However, that type of scenario isn't exactly stopped from happening JUST because scalping is illegal.

do you really think TNSE would sell all 15k tickets to some other person/firm, just so they can ask a higher price?

TNSE and any other team has full rights to sell tickets to whoever they want, and restrict people from buying more than a certain amount of tickets, or require some sort of assurance from people buying more than 10+ seats that they aren't being bought purely for the purpose of resale.

and if you've taken an economics class, you know quite well there are no such things as infinite resources/ infinite property. Your example of Bread isn't exactly helping your cause for scalping being bad.

How do you think Bread gets made? Farmers grow grain and sell it for a profit, grain is sold on an open market, and is bought up by firms of various sizes, who buy said grain based on various prices, mostly depending on when they are buying, and how much they are buying. People, and Companies then buy the grain and turn it into flour, or other products. but let's just stick with flour. Flour is than sold to stores, bakeries, etc, (at largely varying rates, based on how much is being sold, and the market rate)

But ultimately, that flour is sold to a wide range of bakers, some large factory scale bakeries, and some small scale.

the finished product, bread, is the result of a series of exchanges where grain was sold for at a profit.

Some bread is higher priced (just like some seats at a hockey game are)

Some bread is old, undesirable, and cheap (nose bleed section, playing against the Florida Panthers)


If someone wants to buy tickets from a hockey game, just to sell it for a higher price, they should be completely free to do so.

It's essentially like buying stock options, both tickets and stock options are worthless after the date they expire, yet people make a lot of money selling stock options for a profit, and some people get thrown in jail for selling tickets outside of an arena.

If we live in a country that claims to support free market economic policy, then the legal system, and actions of police should reflect that.

Just like corporations are free to buy and sell things for a profit, people should be entirely free to do so too, unless we live in a communist society.

imo, selling your ticket for a profit outside of the arena, is no different than trading stocks in a company for profit.

both should be completely illegal. except, scalpers get arrested, and some irresponsible bankers/ brokers, get bonus's and golden parachutes.

companies don't have the right to "control" the price of stock of their company to be sold in an open market, they can try to turn a profit to increase investment in the company, which will help raise the price of the stock... but market forces basically entirely determine the price of a companies stock.

and considering Sport Teams are essentially corporations, the price of their tickets should be free to be sold for more or less the price they were bought for. It's utterly asinine to put a scalper in jail, unless he is physically threatening people into buying his or her overpriced ticket, (which you are NOT forced to buy)

Take the stock market there are rules in place and people that over look the market and make sure everything is on the up and up and if there was not rules in place the stock market would not work well at all.Scalping while yes some places its not legal but other then that there are no rules maybe its time there are rules and treat just as the stock market set up a agency to over look it etc that way maybe it would be fine.

 

[SuperGenius]

Curious how stubhub fits into all of this...

in some markets, scalpers/ticket dealers are welcomed by teams and representatives. sold tickets, after all, are sold tickets. I've seen it firsthand.

 

[kdb209]

Curious how stubhub fits into all of this...

in some markets, scalpers/ticket dealers are welcomed by teams and representatives. sold tickets, after all, are sold tickets. I've seen it firsthand.

StubHub is subject to state and local regulations on scalping and ticket brokers - and is a registered ticket broker in those states which require it.

StubHub has been sued several times under state anti-scalping laws.

In some cases those have been dismissed under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) - the statute which provides ISPs immunity for the content & actions of its users.

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

In other cases courts have denied dismissal on these grounds.

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/09/stubhub_wins_23.htm

September 13, 2008
StubHub Wins 230 Dismissal in Anti-Scalping Case

By Eric Goldman

Fehrs v. StubHub, Inc., #0801-00515 (Ore. Cir. Ct Sept. 9, 2008). The plaintiff's lawyer has posted some of the litigation materials filed in this case.

...

This lawsuit is very similar to the Hill v. StubHub lawsuit I blogged about in July, Both plaintiffs sued StubHub (and, in this case, eBay) for allowing third parties to resell tickets allegedly in violation of anti-scalping laws (in Hill, it was the Hannah Montana concert tour; this lawsuit, the Boss' tour). In the Hill case, the court rejected StubHub's dismissal request per 47 USC 230. In this case, the court grants the 230 dismissal for StubHub and eBay in a brief non-substantive order--the opposite result. StubHub's eligibility for 230 is currently legally unresolved, but clearly courts will have plenty more cases to develop a consistent rule.

In other cases StubHub has been forced under court order to disclose the identities of persons who sold Patriots tickets on the site - presumably to revoke STH accounts.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071018/184111.shtml

 

[mouser]

Going after scalpers does not excuse TNSE for missing the mark on pricing, or willfully choosing to offset some risks and build good will as a longterm corporate strategy.

Excellent post & very good points. Obviously TNSE wouldve' had to have given much thought to ticket pricing not only from a contemporaneous perspective in relation to what their colleagues in Calgary, Vancouver & elsewhere are charging; but so too with respect to the transition from AHL-NHL pricing in offering their Moose STH's first right of refusal on Jets tickets. I dont think theres much question that they came down on the side of prudence, however, to then ask the Winnipeg Police Services to enforce their act of "good will" strikes me as being both disingenuous & hypocritical. You simply cannot effectively enforce anti-scalping legislation short of the installation of Iris Recognition Security Systems at every entrance to the MTS.

One other point to consider: the willingness of people to pay significantly higher than face value prices on tickets may be only be a short term bubble thing. In this case, short term might be a month or a couple years, can't predict. Eventually at some point the price the market is willing to bear will come off the bubble and down to some relatively steady amount.

It might be in TNSE's short term financial interests to try and ride that bubble with higher initial ticket prices. But it's probably better in their long-term interests to maintain a relatively consistent pricing policy, even if they know initial demand will outstrip supply and make scalping attractive.

 

[17*]

I've always been under the impression that only certain people are allowed to scalp, (perhaps they have a deal with the team, or they work for the team) and the cops are there to make sure no outsiders scalp.

At this one sporting event, there are scalpers on every corner, and every game it's the same guys.

Cops walk up and down the street and don't say anything to the regular scalpers, even though they are loudly saying "Who's got tickets, who's buying, who's selling..."

I go to the ticket office to pick up the tickets I had paid for online.

As I'm walking down the street to the entrance, I hand one ticket to the person I am going to the game with.

All of a sudden there is a cop right on me saying "What's going on fellas?"

I tell him that I am just handing this guy his ticket, and he asks me questions about whether or not I was trying to sell it.

So blatantly obvious that the cops are there to allow only certain people to scalp that it's funny.

 

[mouser]

I've always been under the impression that only certain people are allowed to scalp, (perhaps they have a deal with the team, or they work for the team) and the cops are there to make sure no outsiders scalp.

At this one sporting event, there are scalpers on every corner, and every game it's the same guys.

Cops walk up and down the street and don't say anything to the regular scalpers, even though they are loudly saying "Who's got tickets, who's buying, who's selling..."

I go to the ticket office to pick up the tickets I had paid for online.

As I'm walking down the street to the entrance, I hand one ticket to the person I am going to the game with.

All of a sudden there is a cop right on me saying "What's going on fellas?"

I tell him that I am just handing this guy his ticket, and he asks me questions about whether or not I was trying to sell it.

So blatantly obvious that the cops are there to allow only certain people to scalp that it's funny.

Depending on where you were it's possible scalping is allowed in certain places but not others. Not too uncommon in my experience to see scalping prohibited on actual arena property, but okay a couple hundred feet away.

 

[kdb209]

Depending on where you were it's possible scalping is allowed in certain places but not others. Not too uncommon in my experience to see scalping prohibited on actual arena property, but okay a couple hundred feet away.

Or, as is the case in San Jose, scalpers need a business license/peddlers permit to sell anything on the street.

The scalpers have their permits on display & the cops don't hassle them, but will occasionally bust other fans selling tix for peddling without a license.

 

[17*]

Depending on where you were it's possible scalping is allowed in certain places but not others. Not too uncommon in my experience to see scalping prohibited on actual arena property, but okay a couple hundred feet away.

The scalpers I am referring to are walking up and down the public sidewalk.

Or, as is the case in San Jose, scalpers need a business license/peddlers permit to sell anything on the street.

The scalpers have their permits on display & the cops don't hassle them, but will occasionally bust other fans selling tix for peddling without a license.

I am not aware of any permits, and I don't recall these guys displaying any, but I will ask about it next game I attend.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

I think you are a little mis-informed. "scalpers have a job to,"

Agreed. They don't provide a service. They sell something for more that you would otherwise be able to buy it for, because they were able to get there first. They're like bankers that make money on derivatives - it doesn't help anyone but themselves.

Drug dealers, hookers, and bookies also provide a service, those "jobs" are also illegal.

OT, but prostitution is not strictly illegal in Canada. Some ancillary activities are (such as profiting from someone else's prostitution), but hooking is not illegal by itself.

What you own when you buy a ticket is not a right to admittance, but a conditional license, subject to the terms and conditions of the issuer.

This is a key point.

The scalpers I am referring to are walking up and down the public sidewalk.

Interesting parallel to prostitution. One of the activities related to prostitution that is illegal in Canada is soliciting in public places. That'll get you nicked. It's supposed to protect society from having to have this unseemly sort of thing going on in public.

 

[pucka lucka]

The only reason scalping laws exist is because they were created at a time when original ticket sellers had no means to reasonably control scalpers from buying massive lots of tickets. It's still silly to use the justice system to enforce the business model of a private for profit business.

The only reasons people think scalping laws are a good thing are emotional ones.

 

[Hollywood3]

There is a bit of a difference between having a convenience fee and asking double even triple the amount of market value of the ticket which some scalpers do.Your not going to see alot of scalper stay with in 10% of the market value of the ticket there going to want to make as much money as possible.

The statute says nothing about fees or percentages. Charging more is illegal. And Ticketmaster charges more even when you drive to the ticket office and pay cash. They should fine them.

 

[Hockey Team]

Arresting scalpers standing right outside the arena waving tickets around = OK. People doing that know the risks.

A sting operation to nail someone selling their season tix they aren't using on a craigslist posting? Seriously?

 

[Fehr Time*]

Arresting scalpers standing right outside the arena waving tickets around = OK. People doing that know the risks.

A sting operation to nail someone selling their season tix they aren't using on a craigslist posting? Seriously?

Yeah it is pretty ridiculous, and I just can't see the police initiating something like that without some serious pressure/complaining from TNSE.