Some Ticket Scalping Rules Are Changing

NEW YORK -- For decades, ticket scalping was a thing done in the shadows, but those days of ducking into alleyways and dodging police are fading fast.

New York is poised this week to become the latest in a string of states to ease or eliminate decades-old restrictions on the resale of tickets to sporting events, concerts and shows.

Under the proposed rules, the state would discard its long practice of capping prices for tickets sold on the secondary market.

Some old regulations would stay in place. Scalpers would still be banned from selling tickets within 1,500 feet of large arenas like Madison Square Garden and Yankee Stadium. Smaller venues would get a similar 500-foot buffer zone. Brokers who sell large numbers of tickets would still need to get a license.

But the change would, for the first time, make it entirely legal for average fans to scalp their seats on the Internet.

For better or worse, it would also allow anyone holding a hot ticket to a Mets playoff game or Broadway musical to sell them off for whatever buyers were willing to pay.

"If you have something to sell, you should be able to sell it for what it is truly worth,'' said Sean Pate, spokesman for the online ticket broker StubHub Inc., which lobbied hard for the change.

The state assembly voted for the bill Tuesday. The Senate is expected to follow suit, and Gov. Eliot Spitzer could sign the measure by Friday, when the state's old anti-scalping law expires.

New York is far from alone in its redrafting of scalping rules.

Minnesota tossed out its old anti-scalping laws this spring. The state previously allowed tickets to be resold only at face value.

A bill that would ease Missouri's ban on selling tickets to sporting events at more than face value passed the legislature and is now being considered by the governor.