Justice Department Accuses Broker of Buying 18.5 Million Tickets Illegally

By Elena Vasquez

Federal prosecutors filed a 22-page lawsuit on Thursday accusing San Diego-based REPS & Co of illegally buying 18.5 million tickets to concerts by Beyoncé, Post Malone, Pitbull and Luke Bryan. The Justice Department says the company used bots and other unlawful means, then resold the tickets in bulk for profit, often against the artists' wishes.

The suit, obtained by Rolling Stone, claims REPS sidestepped ticket limits for at least 83,000 events. The company spent more than $1.3 billion on tickets to concerts, Broadway shows, college sporting matches and other events flagged as high-demand by its software. In plain terms: nearly one in five of those events' restricted purchases funneled through a single broker.

How much did the company make?

Prosecutors say REPS resold the tickets at markups on StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, Gametime and Ticketmaster's own resale platform. The take: at least $120.8 million in profit. That is roughly $6.50 in profit per ticket across the 18.5 million purchases alleged.

What does the lawsuit allege about specific concerts?

For one Beyoncé Renaissance tour concert at Arrowhead Stadium in California on Oct. 1, 2023, REPS used at least 1,300 accounts to buy 7,624 tickets through Ticketmaster. The purchase limit for that show was between four and eight tickets. Reselling those seats allegedly earned the company approximately $833,323.

For a Sept. 7, 2024, Pitbull concert in Syracuse, N.Y., the pattern repeated. REPS used at least 700 accounts to buy 5,430 tickets through Ticketmaster — nearly one-third of the Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater's capacity. The company made approximately $120,109 reselling them, according to the lawsuit.

Attempts to reach a REPS spokesperson were not immediately successful Thursday.

What law is behind the case?

The suit marks the latest crackdown under the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, known as the BOTS Act, which bans scalpers from circumventing ticket limits with technology.

"The Justice Department is committed to holding accountable individuals and businesses that drive up the cost of event tickets by illegally exceeding ticket purchase limits and reselling those unlawfully obtained tickets with exorbitant markups," Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said in a statement.

"Working alongside the FTC, we will continue to enforce the BOTS Act to protect consumers from such conduct," Shumate said.

The takeaway: a single broker stands accused of cornering inventory at thousands of live events. The case signals that federal enforcement of the BOTS Act now targets resale operations at industrial scale, with live-event markets — and ticket prices for ordinary buyers — hanging in the balance.