How much money do scalpers make

Sign up to download my FREE EBook to the proven, step-by-step process to travel in luxury for next to nothing. Two weeks ago I asked you to send me your best ideas for making a side income. I got a few hundred responses, and they were entertaining to say the least. Before we get in to the nuts and bolts of how to do this, let me take you back to where it all began. It was the fall of and I was a young, broke college student looking for ways to earn a little bit of walking-around money.

I was sitting in my dorm room browsing through Facebook Marketplace back when this was a thing looking to buy a Chemistry textbook when I saw 2 posts that caught my eye. Literally side by side, and posted within minutes of each other. I figured it was a long shot, but I saw an opportunity to make a quick buck. So I messaged each person, offered to buy the ticket from the first and sell to the second, and set up 2 meetings a block apart from each other.

So I decided to try to scale it. I spent hours scouring through every online marketplace and message board I could find, trying to find other similar opportunities. And there were a TON of them.

Turns out people are pretty lazy when it comes to buying and selling tickets online. This allowed me to generate a pretty substantial profit just by matching buyers and sellers. But I wanted more. Eventually I started to refine my methods, even buying tickets on speculation and putting together lists of people who were looking for tickets on a regular basis. Before long I had put together a side-business that was generating a few hundred dollars of profit per month.

My methods have changed drastically since then, but the general concept remains the same. Ticket resale also known as ticket scalping or ticket touting: It requires very little time, has the potential to generate a substantial profit, and just about anyone can do it.

The type of ticket reselling I do is done entirely from the comfort of my house. Many times without ever seeing the very tickets that I am selling.

How many people were there? What was the overall vibe of the event? They KNOW they are leaving money on the table, but the risk of playing to an empty venue is too great to take the chance.

How do scalpers make their money? : baseball

More on that later. But if you have been following my other advice on credit card use , you already have a MASSIVE advantage that you may not be aware of. Most major events will have some sort of ticket presale that is limited to specific credit card holders. The 2 most popular ones are Citi and American Express, and the only requirement to participate is that you pay with either a Citi or American Express card.

Credit card presales are typically limited to tickets per person, however, this is incredibly easy to get around if you have multiple cards with either Citi or American Express. I typically have at least 3 cards with each at any given time. Simply create additional Ticketmaster accounts and link a different card to each one.

Now you can buy more than a dozen tickets at face value while everyone else is scrambling just to get a couple of them. Before we go any further I need to share an intimate secret with you. In fact, I joined multiple times using multiple email addresses more on this later. You see, back in Justin Bieber was the hottest ticket in the world.

His Believe Tour was set to be the biggest tour of the year and tickets were sure to fetch a hefty profit in the secondary markets. Getting access to his tickets however would prove to be challenging.

Everyone from year old fan girls to suburban soccer moms were trying to get them. I needed an edge, and I got one thanks to the presale offered to members of his fan club. Less than 3 weeks later I had unloaded all of them for a hefty profit.

Scalping: Small Quick Profits Can Add Up

This strategy can be used for almost any artist, but be careful to read all the terms and conditions of their fan club presales. Others will require that you are a member for a certain amount of time before giving you access to the presales.

And make sure you opt out of their emails. I learned that one the hard way. When all else fails your best option is to take a chance with the general public sale. This is much more difficult than it used to be, thanks to the large use of computer bots, but every now and then you will get lucky.

Your best bet is to use multiple browsers as well as the Ticketmaster app on your phone. And pull up the official U. This is pretty obvious but it needs to be mentioned. You absolutely, no-doubt-about-it, guaranteed, will never be able to make a substantial profit by reselling tickets to people who do not have disposable income.

Hipsters looking for general admission tickets to a 3-day outdoor music festival? Probably not a lot of money to be made. I learned in my early days of reselling college football tickets. This is ideal for resellers, as these folks are forced to look to the secondary market for tickets. But you can also guess this based on demographics and common sense. Younger event goers tend to be more on the ball when it comes to planning ahead. This is another goldmine for ticket resellers.

Think about the Super Bowl for example. You have to have some serious connections to score Super Bowl tickets anyway but go with me here.

A ticket scalper spills his secrets - MoneySense

Tickets for the Super Bowl go on sale weeks, or even months, before anyone has any idea of who will be playing in the game. But you, the reseller, KNOW that there is going to be a huge premium on these tickets.

Regardless of which teams end up playing in the game. So you can afford to take that risk. And trust me, it will pay off in a big way. These opportunities occur when there is any sort of event with contingent participants. Playoff games, sports tournaments, college football bowl games, etc. Which of these headlines sounds more believable to you?

Ticket prices are highly dependent on how popular an artist is at the time, and as history has shown, that popularity can change almost overnight. There is no way to quantify this, but you always need to think about how stable an artist is before investing in their tickets. Back to my Justin Bieber example, I was certainly glad to have unloaded his tickets before he was photographed spitting on his fans from an elevated balcony.

This caused a significant drop in his ticket prices on the secondary market, all in a matter of minutes. Always be looking out for red flags and unload your tickets at the first sign of trouble. When and where an event occurs can have a MAJOR effect on ticket prices, even when every other factor is accounted for. So while most events will charge the same face value for every ticket on the tour, prices on the secondary market can vary based on the following factors: Is the average person willing to pay more to see Maroon 5 on a Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa or on a Friday night in the Hollywood Bowl in LA?

Keep this in mind when deciding which tickets you decide to by. Not front row, but not the cheap seats either. The super-premium tickets VIP Experiences, backstage passes, etc. Getting access to these tickets is nearly impossible and only a select few people are willing to pay a premium for them anyway. The cheap tickets are too abundant and rarely sell for much of a premium. But the tickets in-between the two tend to do best.

These are the ones who attract your ideal buyers who are willing to pay a premium for a quality experience. Never buy single tickets , regardless of how lucrative the opportunity looks.

Do not ever buy a single ticket to try to flip it. There are dozens of ways to sell your tickets Craiglist, eBay, etc. StubHub is simply the most effective way to sell your tickets quickly without any risk of fraud. I am not compensated in any way to endorse StubHub. I simply find their product to be the best in the business.

StubHub has a great reputation with buyers and tends to attract the higher-end clients that you are looking for. Craigslist is full of scams and buyers who are looking for rock bottom prices. Lastly, StubHub makes it easy to price your tickets to sell. You can browse similar listings and even use tools that will update the price for you. Like any activity designed to generate a profit, there are risks in reselling tickets.

Unfortunately, many of them try to do so in the world of ticket reselling. Some buyers will try to claim that you never sent the tickets, or that the tickets were different than the ones you listed for sale, etc. Unfortunately, you have little recourse when this happens. Unless of course you sold your tickets on StubHub. With StubHub it is almost impossible for buyers to rip you off. The tickets are verified by Stubhub, Stubhub handles the delivery process, and they offer a number of protections to both buyers and sellers should there be a dispute.

Try to sell your tickets electronically when possible to ensure that there are no qualms about the tickets being shipped correctly. If you have to ship the physical tickets, take a cell phone video of you putting the tickets in to the shipping envelope and dropping it in the box. Think Chris Brown after he physically assaulted Rihanna, Brittany Spears going off the deep end, bands losing a key member, etc.

Often times this is not a total surprise but occasionally it can catch you off guard. The sooner you can flip your tickets for a profit, the better. Even if you have to sacrifice a small amount of profit.

It is absolutely vital that you do not invest money in tickets that you cannot afford to float. Sometimes, due on a number of unpredictable market conditions, you might have to hang on to tickets longer than you anticipated.

Which means that your money is tied up in tickets and unable to be used to pay things like rent and utility bills. So do not, under any circumstances, buy tickets with money that you HAVE to get back in a short time period. This is also non-negotiable. While I understand where this belief comes from, it is a lot more complicated than that. We have simply done our homework and discovered methods that are available to anyone.

If fans are motivated enough to get access to face value tickets they will find a way. Secondly, many people have a problem with ticket resellers because they believe that we are making a risk-free profit off of them. But as we covered above, ticket reselling is far from a riskless activity. There is a lot that can potentially go wrong, and therefore we expect to earn a profit for taking on this risk.

It also would be remiss of me not to touch on the potential legal issues of ticket reselling. SeatGeek put together a great write up of all the legal issues that you need to be aware of so I am not going to rehash all of them here.

Regardless, I would highly suggest that you give it a read before getting started. Ok, we have covered just about everything that you need to know about how to profit from reselling tickets.

Just a few more things to consider before getting started. Pick an artist or event that you are familiar with and start with just 2 tickets. Watch how prices move, learn the basics of how to sell online, and keep track of your profit. As you get more comfortable with the process you can start to test it with other artists and events.

Like travel hacking, reselling tickets takes attention to detail and careful planning.

Create a simple spreadsheet to keep track of what tickets you have, how much you bought them for, and what the final sale price was. This is especially important as you scale your business to a level where taxes come in to play. You will never make significant money reselling tickets online unless you are having fun doing it. Bryce Conway is the founding editor of 10xTravel. How to Travel the World for Next to Nothing and How to Fix Your Credit: Get on with Your Life.

Get exclusive content, private tips, giveaways, and more. Blog , Side Hustle Side Hustle: How to Make Money by Selling Event Tickets Online. Today, I am going to show you how to make a side income by reselling tickets online. The key is knowing how to play the game. And that my friends, is where I come in.

Bryce Conway is the name, finding loopholes is my game. How to Profit by Reselling Tickets Online First, a quick definition: Why Does This Work? This is where ticket reselling comes in. More on that later Which will lead to a profit more times than not.

Now I know what you are thinking. Credit Card Presales Most major events will have some sort of ticket presale that is limited to specific credit card holders. Fan Club Presales Before we go any further I need to share an intimate secret with you. Timing When all else fails your best option is to take a chance with the general public sale.

Ok, moving right along. This is the million dollar question.

Audience has access to disposable income This is pretty obvious but it needs to be mentioned. Well, experience for one. So why does the average fan choose not to buy them?

Same issue came up when Chris Brown assaulted Rihanna. Favorable Venue or Date When and where an event occurs can have a MAJOR effect on ticket prices, even when every other factor is accounted for. Iconic venues Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Hollywood Bowl, etc. High cost of living markets NYC, LA, etc. People will always pay more to see an event on a weekend vs a weekday.

Smaller venues will usually have a higher price per ticket than larger venues. Again, this comes down to common sense. Favorable Tickets Ok, last one.

Yes, everything is an airline analogy to me Not front row, but not the cheap seats either. It all comes down to who your market is. Here are a couple more thoughts: Pairs of tickets will always fetch the highest price per ticket. This is because most people go to concerts in pairs.

If not pairs, stick to even numbers so that you can split them in to pairs if needed. Where to sell your tickets There are dozens of ways to sell your tickets Craiglist, eBay, etc.

What are the risks in this game? Here are a few that you should be aware of. Lack of Liquidity It is absolutely vital that you do not invest money in tickets that you cannot afford to float.

Advice before getting started: Keep Good Records Like travel hacking, reselling tickets takes attention to detail and careful planning. October 23, by Bryce Conway. Bryce Conway Bryce Conway is the founding editor of 10xTravel. Previous Post Next Post. You Might Also Like Reader Success Story: Get More Out of Travel and Life by Doing Less May 5, Barcelona February 23, Enter the 10xT Vegas Giveaway Here: Latest Posts 7 Travel Cards Offering Peak Signup Bonuses for Summer June 21, TSA Pre-Check and Global Entry: Programs That Make Traveling A Breeze June 20, How To Visit The Maldives With Miles and Points June 13, Citi Bonus and Application Rules June 6, American Express Bonus and Application Rules June 1, Using Household Income for Credit Card Applications May 30, Why I Upgraded my Sapphire Preferred to Sapphire Reserve Without Getting a Bonus May 26, Like What You're Reading?

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