▲ Crackdown on Ticket Scalping at BTS Concert in Busan
Ahead of concerts by popular singers or highly anticipated sports games, posts selling tickets at a premium targeting those who failed to buy tickets are easy to find.
Ticket prices for singer Lim Young-woong's concert were originally 176,000 won but rose to up to 5 million won on the black market, while first-base couple seats for a game between the Hanwha Eagles and Kia Tigers, originally worth 40,000 won, were sold at 400,000 won, ten times the face value.
The government estimates the size of this online ticket scalping market to exceed 100 billion won annually.
Defining ticket scalping as one of the "intractable ailments of the cultural industry," the government amended relevant laws to strengthen punishment, which will take effect on August 28.
As a result, even if an individual who legitimately purchased a ticket resells just one, they face a higher likelihood of sanctions if the price is excessively high.
Online ticket scalping is pointed out as a chronic evil that violates the legitimate rights of fans seeking to watch games and performances, undermines fair viewing order, and hinders the development of the cultural industry.
The scalping market has shifted from offline to online.
The domestic online scalping market is estimated by the government to exceed 100 billion won per year.
According to "Ticket Scalping Through Data" (2026), published in "Data & Law" by the National Assembly Library, the number of offline ticket scalping crackdowns by the National Police Agency decreased from 184 cases in 2016 to 46 cases in 2025.
On the other hand, the number of online reports of professional sports ticket scalping reached 41,239 cases in 2025, jumping about 11-fold in five years from 3,627 cases in 2020.
Among reports of professional sports ticket scalping, 98.3% (40,541 cases) were related to baseball game tickets.
The monitoring team of the Korea Professional Sports Association monitored 262,381 suspected ticket scalping transactions last year.
In the same year, 1,649 reports of ticket scalping in the performing arts sector were received.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism estimated that scalped tickets in the performing arts sector were sold at about 1.81 times the face value, and in the professional sports sector at about 2.56 times the face value.
As ticket scalping has run rampant, controversies have recently arisen during idol group concerts when event organizers and agencies forced excessive identity verification procedures on attendees or denied entry to those who received transferred tickets in an effort to catch scalpers.
Recently, at a concert by an idol group, a series of review posts emerged stating that people who received transferred tickets, as well as those who owned their own tickets, were denied entry simply because their actual faces looked somewhat different from their ID photos.
In July last year, at a fan meeting for an idol band, claims were raised that organizers demanded address and resident registration number verification, and even asked for financial certificates and school records because the audience member's ID photo differed from their actual appearance, leading the agency to issue an apology.
Ticket scalping is not just a domestic problem, but a worldwide headache.
In 2023, tickets for American singer Taylor Swift's concert in Melbourne, Australia, were listed on a resale site for 3,114 Australian dollars (about 3.18 million won).
This price was about eight times the highest regular ticket price of 379.90 Australian dollars (about 390,000 won).
Recently, English Premier League football club Manchester United faced backlash after carrying out "digital surveillance" to catch scalpers, which resulted in account suspensions even for ardent fans who had held season tickets for decades.
According to "A Study on Overseas Cases of Ticket Resale" (2025) published by the Korea Sports Entertainment Law Society, France—the first European Union (EU) country to pass a law strictly limiting secondary ticketing—imposes a fine of 15,000 euros (about 25 million won) for first-time offenders caught regularly reselling tickets without organizer consent, and 30,000 euros (about 50 million won) for repeat offenders.
In Ireland, which enacted a similar law in 2021, reselling tickets for live events above face value can result in fines of up to 100,000 euros (170 million won) or up to two years in prison.
In Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Norway, Portugal, and Poland, selling purchased tickets above face value is also illegal.
Germany prohibits selling tickets at more than 25% above face value, and tickets sold under an individual's name are non-transferable.
In the United Kingdom, there are no specific restrictions on price or sales methods when reselling tickets.
Instead, laws regulating secondary ticket sales have developed centered around cases where secondary ticket buyers suffered damage, with the law specifying the duty of care for ticket resellers, event organizers, and resale ticket platform operators, respectively.
In the United States, federal law prohibits unfair ticket purchases through automated software, but does not set a direct price cap on ticket resale.
By state, places like New York and New Jersey prohibit selling above a certain percentage of face value, whereas Texas has no price limits.
For ticket resale, states other than New York and Massachusetts allow free resale without licensing requirements.
In South Korea, ticket scalping traded through channels other than official ticket sellers can be regulated under the Minor Offenses Act, the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, the Criminal Act, the Public Performance Act, and the National Sports Promotion Act.
Provisions punishing online scalping for performances and sports were established relatively recently.
The revised Public Performance Act provision applying to performance scalping took effect in March 2024, and the revised National Sports Promotion Act provision applying to sports scalping such as professional baseball and soccer took effect in September of the same year.
However, these regulations applied only to cases using programs that automatically and repeatedly input designated commands into information and communications networks—so-called "macros"—leaving ticket purchases made through other unfair methods outside the reach of the law.
As criticisms mounted that ticket scalping significantly hinders the development of the cultural industry, the government defined ticket scalping as one of the two major intractable ailments of the cultural industry and prepared additional strong measures, including heavy administrative fines and reporting reward programs.
The amendments to the Public Performance Act and the National Sports Promotion Act, set to take effect on August 28, prohibit the unfair purchase of tickets for resale purposes or the habitual or commercial sale of tickets at a premium without the seller's consent, regardless of macro usage.
In addition, administrative fines of up to 50 times the sales amount can be imposed on unfair sellers, and profits obtained from unfair sales can be subject to confiscation or forfeiture.
A system for paying rewards for reporting unfair purchases and sales will also be introduced.
The amendments define unfair purchase as "the act of purchasing admission tickets from the initial seller for resale purposes by bypassing or obstructing the fair purchase process established by the initial seller."
An official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism explained, "If a ticket is purchased by a method other than the one specified by the initial seller, most can be viewed as an unfair purchase," adding, "The goal is to prohibit all various unfair purchases that may emerge due to technological developments."
The revised law evaluates three criteria regardless of whether the seller is an individual or a business: ▲ whether there is consent from the initial seller, ▲ whether the act is habitual or commercial, and ▲ whether the ticket was sold or brokered at a price higher than the purchase price.
Among these, official channels for reselling with consent from the initial seller virtually do not exist in South Korea.
According to the ministry, while whether an act is habitual or commercial must be determined judicially by courts, administratively, selling two or more tickets at a price exceeding face value or selling even a single ticket at more than double face value can be deemed unfair selling by habitual or commercial means, subjecting the seller to administrative fines.
Unfair purchase and unfair sale do not necessarily have to occur together to be subject to punishment.
For example, if someone unfairly bypassed the reservation process for resale purposes, it can constitute unfair purchase regardless of whether an actual sale occurred or what the sale price was.
Conversely, an individual who reserved a ticket normally for viewing purposes can also be considered to have committed unfair sale if they resell the ticket above face value.
Both cases are subject to criminal penalties, but administrative fines are imposed only on unfair sellers.
For administrative fines, ten times the sales amount is imposed if the number of occurrences is 2–3 times or the sales amount is under 500,000 won, while 50 times the sales amount is imposed if the frequency is 10 times or more and the sales amount is 2 million won or more.
The ministry official said, "The basic principle is that if you reserved a ticket to go yourself but can no longer attend, you must cancel it," adding, "Even if purchased normally, reselling multiple tickets above face value or selling even a single personal ticket for more than double face value can subject you to sanctions."
The official explained, "Transferring a ticket at a level that adds booking fees incurred during purchase is not considered selling above the purchase price," adding, "Even if a ticket originally acquired at a high price is sold at the same price, it is not being sold for more than the purchase price, so responsibility can be exempted upon explanation."
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