The Ticket Scalper II

Thanks for all the good stories and feedback about my ticket scalping experiences. I made a job out of it and it was my job. But I never honestly put myself in other people's shoes who were buying the tickets from me. Glad I got to read all the comments and responses so I could see the other side of ticket scalping, the buyers.

I had a friend who owned a ticket office also, and all the tickets that he weren't able to sell out of his ticket office, he would give them to me to sell. He would give me a price and I would go sell the tickets and make a profit for myself also. He was a ticket broker. He would buy all his tickets way in advance as soon as they went on sale, then he would sit on them until it's time to sell them out of his office. Some people prefer to buy tickets from a ticket office, I guess it looks more official than buying them off a scalper. I've seen times where guys who own ticket offices would go down to the stadiums and sell their own tickets that they couldn't sell out of their ticket offices.

I also knew scalpers that would pay people to stand in line overnight so they can get good seats as soon as the tickets go on sale. Once they get these good seats, they sell the tickets to the guys who own ticket offices (brokers), the guys who owns the ticket offices then sell the tickets out of their ticket offices. If you've always wondered why tickets are so high priced when you buy them out of a ticket office, that's why. The scalper has to pay the people who stood in line all night to buy the tickets, then he has to also kick out money to the people to buy the tickets, so once he makes it to the ticket broker's office he has to sell them at a high price. The brokers don't mind paying good money for good seats. For example, I could sell a $30.00 ticket to a ticket broker for $125.00, if it's a good seat. Next, the ticket broker will then sell the ticket out of his office for twice that amount ($250.00).

I had a friend who would only sell his tickets to ticket brokers that own offices. He would never come down to the stadium and try to sell his tickets. He said the brokers are steady and reliable. Times have changed and I've been in prison since 1998. So a lot has changed and everything is pretty much done over the internet. I also used to move to a city for a short time so I could have season tickets. Usually a city with a good football, baseball, or basketball, or hockey team. I usually would have other people with me that weren't scalpers and I would also have them buy season tickets for me. We even had our own slang when scalping tickets. If a show or event was no good and you couldn't sell any tickets, we would call it a "bomb". We would call fake tickets "blinks". I was always against selling "blinks", it was bad for business. One time I had a guy out of New York who knew I was a scalper, so he tried to sell me 200 "blinks" for $1,000. It was Monday night football at the old Veterans Stadium. I turned him down. I lived in Philly at the time and I didn't want to be involved in that kind of ticket scalping. I wasn't willing to cross that line.

I had a friend out of Buffalo who sold T-shirts at mostly concerts. Once I got to know him, I found out from him that he was getting his shirts printed up for one dollar each T-shirt. He would sell them for $10 each, so a dozen of 12 T-shirts would bring him $120.00, a $108.00 profit. He told me sometimes he would sell anywhere from 9-10 dozen T-shirts at each event. Sometimes I would invest with him and he would sell the shirts and we would split the money.

Sometimes I would have extra tickets left over from scalping. I've already made my profit and every now and then I would go inside and watch the concert. It was really cool.

I've even had friends that I know, relatives, neighbors, etc., come to an event and they see me scalping tickets and they automatically want a discount. And I usually give it to them.

One thing I do regret is not investing the money wisely that I would make. I was young at the time and thought I had all the answers to life. Once I moved to Las Vegas I had pretty much retired from scalping tickets. Vegas isn't really a good place to scalp tickets anyway. They have shows there all the time, so people can pretty much see any show they want, and the tickets seem to never sell out, which is bad for scalpers. On top of that, most people come to Vegas to gamble, period. I didn't intend to stay in Vegas that long at all. I was in a casino playing video poker and I hit a royal flush. That's when I decided to stay a little longer!

I guess that's the end of my ticket scalping experiences. Sometimes you have to take your mind away from this place for a while. I usually do that by thinking of all the fun times I've had before I came here. I saw a television show on Inside Edition where someone was selling fake tickets for a benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy victims. I couldn't believe it! I just said to myself, "Maybe I've just been in prison for too long and things are changing."