“Taylor Swift Bill” bans bots from hoarding tickets in concerts and live events

Gov. Whitmer signs bipartisan ticket bot ban

Michigan just made it illegal for bots to snatch up your concert tickets.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills into law on Dec. 23, 2025, banning automated software from buying tickets to concerts, sports games, and other live events across the state.

The laws, known as the Event Online Ticket Sales Act, take effect March 24, 2026. Michigan now joins about a dozen states that have passed similar bans.

Taylor Swift fans sparked the push

You can thank Swifties for this one. More than 3.5 million fans registered, and the site buckled within an hour.

The bills earned the nickname “Taylor Swift bills” after Ticketmaster’s presale for the Eras Tour crashed on Nov. 15, 2022.

About 2.4 million tickets sold that day, but countless fans got locked out while those same tickets popped up on resale sites at much higher prices.

The backlash pushed lawmakers across the country to act.

Bots are banned, but resale stays legal

The law targets the tools, not the people. It covers events at venues with more than 200 seats. Each ticket a bot grabs counts as its own violation.

It makes it illegal to use bots to get around online safeguards like purchase limits, digital waiting lines, and presale protections.

But if you buy a ticket the normal way and want to resell it to a friend or online, that’s still perfectly legal in Michigan.

Fines hit $5,000 per ticket

The penalties add up fast. Anyone caught using bots faces civil fines of up to $5,000 for every single ticket bought through a bot.

Michigan’s Attorney General can investigate violations, go to court to stop the activity, and seek money back for fans who got burned.

Sellers also carry some responsibility. They may need to show that the tickets they handle were bought through legitimate means.

A Republican and Democrat co-sponsored the bills

The bills came from both sides of the aisle. Rep. Mike Harris, a Republican from Waterford Township, sponsored House Bill 4262.

His district includes Pine Knob Music Theatre, one of Michigan’s most popular concert venues. Sen. Mary Cavanagh, a Democrat from Redford Township, sponsored Senate Bill 158.

The House passed its bill 104 to 1 in June 2025, and the Senate followed with a 33-to-3 vote in December.

A federal bot ban already exists

President Barack Obama signed the BOTS Act into federal law on Dec. 14, 2016.

That law also bans bots from bypassing ticket purchase limits and security measures at venues with more than 200 seats.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces it, and state attorneys general can bring cases under it too. But here’s the problem: in more than eight years, the FTC has used the law just once.

Federal enforcement fell short for years

That single FTC action came in 2021, when the agency went after three New York-based ticket brokers. Those brokers had used bots and fake accounts to buy more than 150,000 tickets.

They ended up paying about $3.7 million in civil fines. Michigan lawmakers said that track record wasn’t good enough.

They argued that state-level tools let regulators and courts act faster and more directly than the federal government.

Trump signed a ticket-related executive order

President Trump signed an executive order on March 31, 2025, called “Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market.”

It told the FTC to ramp up enforcement of the BOTS Act and work with state attorneys general. It also pushed for more price transparency in ticket sales.

Then in September 2025, the FTC and seven states filed a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, accusing them of deceptive pricing and working with brokers.

Other states passed similar laws

Michigan isn’t going it alone. California, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia have all passed their own ticket bot bans.

Supporters say state-level laws put enforcement closer to where the problems happen.

Instead of waiting on a federal agency to act, local authorities can step in faster when fans in their state get squeezed out by bots.

Michigan modeled its law on the federal version

Michigan’s bills closely follow the structure of the 2016 federal BOTS Act. Both laws define what ticket bots are and ban their use to get around purchase controls.

The big difference is who enforces it. The federal law depends on the FTC, while Michigan’s version gives the state’s own Attorney General direct authority to act.

That means Michigan doesn’t have to wait in line behind other states for federal attention.

Rare agreement in a gridlocked legislature

The ticket bot ban stood out in a year where almost nothing got done.

The 2025 Michigan Legislature passed just 74 public acts, far below the 20-year average of about 383. Republicans held the House while Democrats controlled the Senate, and the two sides clashed on most issues.

The bot ban was one of the few bills that cut through the gridlock and earned broad support from both parties.

Fans gain new protections starting in March

Starting March 24, 2026, anyone who uses bots to scoop up tickets in Michigan could face fines of $5,000 per ticket. The law doesn’t touch fans who buy or resell tickets through normal channels.

Michigan’s Attorney General now has the tools to investigate complaints from residents who believe bots manipulated ticket sales.

For fans tired of watching tickets vanish in seconds, the state is betting this law makes a real difference.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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