South Korea plans crackdown on ticket scalping

South Korea plans to tighten regulations on reselling event tickets, following examples set by countries such as France and Japan.

Many countries ban ticket resale above face value or impose strict price limits. France fines individuals between 15,000 and 30,000 euros for regularly reselling tickets without organizer permission. Denmark, Italy, and Portugal also consider resale above face value illegal. Germany limits sales priced 25 percent or more above the original ticket price.

Japan prohibits repeated resale of tickets for popular concerts and sporting events without organizer approval. Authorities crack down on both online and on-site scalping near venues. Offenders face up to one year in prison or fines up to 1 million yen (approximately 9.3 million Korean won).

In the United States, 38 states allow ticket resale only through licensed sellers. These resellers must comply with price caps or sell tickets at face value. State governments oversee the industry through regulation and taxation.

South Korea’s National Sports Promotion Act currently makes it difficult to penalize scalpers unless they use automated scripts called macros. A professional baseball team official said they monitor online ticket sites to identify suspected macro users and have referred several cases to cybercrime authorities. Despite this, online ticket resale continues to increase when macros are not involved.

The Korean government and National Assembly are working to amend laws to strengthen measures against illegal ticket scalping. In February 2025, Lawmaker Ku Ja-keun of the People Power Party proposed changes to the Public Performance Act that would allow criminal penalties regardless of macro use. In December 2024, Lawmaker Cho In-cheol of the Democratic Minjoo Party introduced a similar amendment to the National Sports Promotion Act. An official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said legal revisions are under review to remove the macro use requirement and increase penalties.


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