As Canes tickets top $1,000, state lawmakers push bill to crack down on bots
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bipartisan bill filed in April would ban bots that buy large quantities of event tickets.
- The bill bans speculative ticket sales and requires disclosure of total ticket price.
- Senators Chaudhuri, Sawyer, and Moffitt are primary co-sponsors of the bill.
As Carolina Hurricanes fans deal with skyrocketing ticket prices for Stanley Cup Finals games, state lawmakers are working to protect ticket buyers with new legislation.
A bipartisan bill filed in April would implement consumer protections for purchasing event tickets, including prohibiting people from creating bots that buy up tons of tickets very quickly to then resell them.
Since the Canes defeated the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Finals last week, fans online have been met with long digital queues to purchase tickets for the final round and prices over $1,000.
Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Wake County Democrat, is a primary co-sponsor of the bill. He told The News & Observer that as Canes fans celebrate the team’s return to the final round for the first time in 20 years, “unregulated secondary ticket sellers, scalpers, and bots are buying up tickets by the thousands before real fans ever get a chance.”
Ticketmaster is the “Official Ticket Marketplace” of the team, according to the NHL website.
Last year, Ticketmaster wrote on its website that its digital queue “uses advanced security measures to block bots and monitor traffic.”
Sen. Vickie Sawyer, a Mooresville Republican, and Sen. Tim Moffitt, a Hendersonville Republican, are also primary sponsors of the “Real Tickets, Real Fans Act.”
Sawyer on social media posted that “North Carolinians shouldn’t have to compete with bots, deceptive resellers, or fake ticket scams just to enjoy a concert or community event.”
“This bipartisan bill will protect consumers, support our local venues and artists, and bring more transparency to ticket sales,” she wrote.
Bill specifics
The bill prohibits people from creating bots that break down security systems to skip digital queues and purchase more tickets than allowed.
Chaudhuri said bots use multiple Internet Protocol addresses to digitally skip the line.
“When tickets to a Stanley Cup Finals game sell out in seconds, it’s not because of overwhelming demand — it’s because bots and software are gaming the system,” he said.
Also, the bill would prohibit ticket resellers from offering or selling tickets ahead of actually having the ticket in-hand. Those are known as speculative tickets.
For transparency purposes, the bill would require that the total ticket price is disclosed, “including all mandatory fees and the maximum order processing fee, if any.”
It would also require disclosing “the existence and actual dollar amount of each mandatory fee, if any,” before the transaction is complete.
Ticketmaster is part of Live Nation Entertainment, which was created through the ticketing website’s merger with Live Nation in 2010.
The company was involved in a nearly two-year-long antitrust lawsuit. In April, a jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster operated as an illegal monopoly, although the company has filed post-trial motions asking for an overturned verdict or a new trial.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, was one of dozens of attorneys general across the state who sued the company. He told The N&O that the case does not “affect the resale market, which is often dependent on demand.”
Chaudhuri said Jackson’s “historic landmark win” against Live Nation and Ticketmaster was “just one part of the solution in protecting fans.”
“Our bill bans bots, requires price transparency, and stops fake ticket sites,” he said. “These are concrete wins for fans right now.”
Renee Umsted contributed to this story.
This story was originally published June 1, 2026 at 6:42 PM with the headline "As Canes tickets top $1,000, state lawmakers push bill to crack down on bots."
