Japanese Government plans Olympics anti-scalping laws

Japan’s Government plans to introduce legislation to control online ticket resale and tackle scalping in the country ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Drafted in response to the Local Organising Committee’s request for a legal framework to prevent ticket resale prices being dramatically inflated, the new regulations are planned to be in place prior to tickets going on sale for the 2020 Games.

The Local Organising Committee is also planning to introduce a ticket exchange system where ticket holders will be able to resell their tickets at face value for Olympic and Paralympic events.

The legislation reportedly includes three main conditions regarding primary ticket sales.

They involve sellers specifying an event’s date, time, venue and seat number; organisers including a notice that it prohibits the resale of the ticket; and the organiser must make some sort of provision to prevent scalping, such as checking ticket holder’s identities against a database.

If passed, the bill will effectively ban the business of acquiring tickets for the purpose of resale, with the aim of preventing price inflation.

Scalpers who sell tickets on the street face six months imprisonment and a fine of up to 500,000 yen (US$4,400), and this will likely be the same fate for online resellers if the law is passed.

However, the legislation will not penalise those who buy a ticket for an event legitimately, but find themselves unable to attend and sell it on for less than face value.

Japan has widespread anti-scalping laws but they currently only pertain to street sales and not online transactions.

Last month, it was revealed that tickets for the Olympic Games will soon be sold through a centralised system, rather than through Authorised Ticket Resellers (ATRs).

The process, which is apparently being finalised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is likely to be in place for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

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