[Anchor]

As illegal ticket scalping runs rampant at popular sports events, an "anti-scalping law" imposing administrative fines of up to 50 times the sales price went into effect two months ago. Yet, exorbitant scalped tickets priced in the millions of won—ten times the original price—are still openly traded.

Reporter Lee Tae-gwon has more.

[Reporter]

All 66,000 seats for the first three games of the professional baseball playoffs sold out, proving immense popularity.

With ticket competition fierce, scalpers are still a fixture at the venues.

Baseball fans who failed to secure tickets sometimes head to movie theaters broadcasting the games live to console their disappointment.

[Seo Ji-woo and Bae Shin-cheol / Gwanak-gu, Seoul: Scalpers snap everything up in advance, so realistically, no matter how much you love baseball, it is not easy to watch games at those prices.]

Even with crackdowns, scalping persisted, prompting the implementation of a strengthened "anti-scalping law" starting last August.

The law mandates fines of up to 50 times the sales price for anyone reselling tickets above purchase price, even if macros were not used and the act was not habitual or commercial, while also holding trading platforms partially accountable.

However, on ticket brokerage sites, table seats originally priced at 90,000 won are being sold for hundreds of thousands of won, and there are even listings offering tickets for 1.65 million won.

When inquiring with a seller on a secondhand trading app who was asking 800,000 won for two tickets originally priced at 95,000 won each, the reply came back: "I have to get at least 550,000 won."

Critics point out this is because the criteria for determining habitual and commercial scalping under the anti-scalping law are ambiguous, and brokerage platforms lack sufficient incentives to actively monitor fraudulent sellers.

[Jang Hyo-gang / Attorney (Law Office Ewha): If they borrow names from multiple people or operate multiple accounts, it is actually very difficult to lead to punishment.]

Experts suggest that clear detection criteria should be established, and overseas examples where ticket transfers and resale are permitted exclusively through official platforms managed by event organizers should be referenced.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
Reported by Kim Se-kyung | Video by Park Na-young | VJ by Kim Hyung-jin | Graphics by Han Heung-soo and Kim Ye-ji