I'm going to do this full time at least through this year's NFL and NCAA seasons, and then reevaluate. The money has been great (better than any "real" job I'm qualified for as a recent econ major with no internships), but the hours are tough, and psychologically it's a serious grind.

Poker is more of a hobby, there's no future in that for me.

So you're basically admitting to using illegal software which violates TicketMasters term's of service to circumvent CAPCHA.

Do you do any face to face transactions at the ballparks/stadiums?

Do you even end up going to games b/c you weren't able to unload the tickets?

How many tickets do you usually end up eating in a week? Going unsold?

From speaking with another ticket broker at a poker table recently, I was told that there is tons of money in NFL and college football but less in baseball and basketball (not counting playoffs and major rivalries). Is this true? It seems like you do well with MLB teams (Twins).

From your point of view, what percentage of ticket brokers are large companies vs individuals like you?

Thanks

One of my clients (I am an it consultant) is a ticket broker. They have about 5 employees and do over 10 million in sales. They told me that they 'just got into retail' and are currently putting up a website. How do they make their money?

I setup the server for them for the ticket technology program. Do you use this and what are it's capabilities?

They also have 5 or 6 guys that rent space from them and user their internet/server/phones, is this common in your industry?

The owner got me some tickets to a show. The tickets had a price of 0.00, what is the story with these tickets?

Thanks!!!

The legality of programs/scripts to get through Ticketmaster faster is pretty interesting. A couple months ago there was a huge bust of a company called "wise guys tickets" that claimed to do $25 million last year. It's in federal court now. Here's a really interesting article about it: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...guys-indicted/

I used software a couple years ago, but don't anymore because it's much more difficult now. (Your IP gets blocked by TM a lot faster now). The software I had wasn't nearly as sophisticated as described in the article (I still had to enter the captchas, but the rest of the buying process was totally automated).

When I said I have a huge edge, I mostly meant that I can get through faster than 99% of "fans", and for a big onsale I have 10-15 other people pulling tix for me simultaneously.

I'm a big baseball and ncaa fan, but I usually buy tix from other brokers/scalpers if I'm going myself.

How many tickets do you usually end up eating in a week? Going unsold?

Totally depends. I'll sell a pair of tickets for $2 before I'll eat them. I have a bunch of stl cardinals season tix that I've sold for $1 on stubhub this year the day of the game because they are so overbought.

From speaking with another ticket broker at a poker table recently, I was told that there is tons of money in NFL and college football but less in baseball and basketball (not counting playoffs and major rivalries). Is this true? It seems like you do well with MLB teams (Twins).

This year so far the Twins are my best investment. $10 a seat season tix are averaging $30-35 a ticket so far, plus opening day was a $150 get in. If I had season tix to every single mlb team I'd lose a ton of $$.

From your point of view, what percentage of ticket brokers are large companies vs individuals like you?

That's a great question. I use a Ticketnetwork.com point of sale to manage/sell a lot of my inventory, and there are over 4000 brokers on that system paying $2400 a year plus commission for the POS. In the industry I am definitely bigger than a "small fish", but compared to brokers who have multiple employees/retail locations/millions in sales I'm very tiny. I'd guess that of the thousands of "professional brokers" only 10% are full-time.

Thanks[/QUOTE]

One of my clients (I am an it consultant) is a ticket broker. They have about 5 employees and do over 10 million in sales. They told me that they 'just got into retail' and are currently putting up a website. How do they make their money?

A lot of brokers are just wholesalers. Many of the biggest online ticket brokers don't own any inventory themselves, they just sell wholesalers' tickets at a markup. If you go to ticketnetwork.com and click on an event, you will see the tickets listed at wholesale prices (the price the holding broker actually receives) and ticketnetwork tacks on 18% service charge at checkout. Retail brokers list these same tickets at a 15-20% markup and don't charge a service charge. They can get away with this because most wholesalers or smaller brokers like me can't get enough traffic to our own sites/phone numbers so these brokers actually can sell our tickets at 15% markups faster than we can sell them at wholesale.

Your client "Getting into retail" means they are going to spend more of their business on marketing/SEO/ppc to get retail customers, rather than selling their own inventory at their wholesale cost. (If I have a ticket that I need $100 for, often I'll get a call from goldentickets.com or vividseats.com or some huge $10M+ broker who has a client on the other line about to purchase my ticket for $120.

I setup the server for them for the ticket technology program. Do you use this and what are it's capabilities?

Ticket Technology is a point of sale system that Stubhub bought a couple years ago. Their biggest competitors are ticketnetwork.com and eventinventory.com. I use TN but have heard good things about TT. I list all my inventory on TN and it synchs all my tix to my website, Stubhub and 1000s of other brokers websites in real time. TT does the same thing, but doesn't have as big a reach IMO.

They also have 5 or 6 guys that rent space from them and user their internet/server/phones, is this common in your industry?

I'm not sure. I have a small one person office downtown in the city I work at. When customers pick up tickets from me, I just meet them in the lobby of my office building. When there's a big onsale, I have people pulling tix for me but not at my own office.

The owner got me some tickets to a show. The tickets had a price of 0.00, what is the story with these tickets?

These were comp tix from the venue. Bigger brokers all have relationships with box office managers/promoters/teams to sell tix on commission. The New Jersey Nets notoriously sold 1000s of season tix last year to brokers for 50% under retail because they couldn't move tix. Lots of promoters will hold some VIP tix and pass on to brokers to line their pockets. The brokers keep a small % of the profit and those tix are often "comp" tix.

This is a great article about the UKansas box office. They got caught this year dealing with a few brokers for bball for $millions and heads rolled.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketb...utickets052610

Thanks!!![/QUOTE]

I guess theres only really 2 strategies to this business.

One, arbitrage or buying tix from TM or wherever you can find them and flipping them higher.

Two, if you follow sports closely, you can buy season tix for teams that you think will perform better than consensus. Obv still need the right economics to make this work.

I dont follow baseball so sorry if dumb question but was the Twins purchase an example of the second strategy? How much do you use the second strategy?

Also, side question, do you bet sports?

Also another question, how are you only making $60-70k on sales of $500k?

Your overhead seems very small? Is it all IT and service fees?

Last year sales about $360k. Average profit margin is tough to figure because I take a lot of losses, some minor some very huge.

what's the diff between a broker and a scalper?

I dont follow baseball so sorry if dumb question but was the Twins purchase an example of the second strategy? How much do you use the second strategy?


I don't really invest in a team because I think the team is going to do better than expectation, but I will if I think there's some reason why the season will be more valuable. For instance I bought a bunch of cardinals seasons last year because each season account entitled you to all star game tickets, which made the package much more valuable (I could sell under face for all the weekdays, over face for most weekends, and make a couple $k from the ASG tix.

This year I bought a bunch for Twins because they moved into their new stadium, and that has made them one of the toughest tickets in sports this year. Similarly, the day after Lebron signed, I signed up about 10 friends/families to the Heat waiting list and ended up getting about 6 season tix for next year... (nothing huge but should make a few k...if they are in the finals could be worth $10k.).


Also, side question, do you bet sports?


I will bet sports to hedge in playoff situations. In 2006 I was in Denver working the Rockies-Red Sox world series and put $5,000 on BOS for game 4, because I stood to make a ton on game 5 tix if the Rockies could have won a game.

In 2006 I had a bunch of Cardinals world series tickets from the onsale, and I decided to bet $4,000 on the Mets to win NLCS game 7 to hedge. I did it through Bodog and was still rooting hard for STL. They pulled it out, and I didn't log into Bodog for another 4 months. Next time I logged in, I realized I had accidentally bet on STL and had like $7,000 sitting in the account

A scalper is generally someone who just works the street at games. They don't invest a lot in tickets, but hope to pick up extras from fans at the game, or from releases at the box office.

Most of the thuggish guys at games with fistfulls of tickets are just selling them on commission for bigger brokers who had priced the tix too high and were left with them on game day. I don't really have anyone that I use for that, as most of my tickets can be emailed, or I will overnight them to a reputable local broker who in turn will try to sell them or pass them to the scalpers at last resort.

There's a whole network of street scalpers who are on the road 300+ days a year. At the Super Bowl, Final Four, ASG, the scalpers are from all over the country. They "work the circuit" and will show up to random mlb games when there isn't a bigger event. Most of them are degens but it's possible to "sort of" eek out a living doing that I guess.

Speaking of scalpers, this is a fascinating article from SI in 1997 about street guys and a little about bigger brokers. It's a really well-reported article. The industry has evolved so much since then...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...25/7/index.htm

The exchange of sexual gratification for consideration between consenting adults is not illegal in Canada... though laws that pertain to establishments, procuring, and public soliciting make it tricky.

As for escorts, in theory (and legally) you are paying for companionship. Other than vague euphemisms like "girlfiend experience"... no one will ever discuss sex with you until the girl arrives. Sexual acts are then negotiated in private as a way of creating repeat business. The escort/massage space depends to a very large degree on regular customers and word-of-mouth.