A bill filed ahead of the next session of the Texas Legislature by state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, may be music to concertgoers’ ears.
Zaffirini’s Senate Bill 42, filed on Monday’s opening day of the Lege’s prefiling period, would target price-gouging in the concert ticket industry, which has been enabled, in part, by scalping bots that scoop up tickets to resell at huge markups.
The measure would empower the Texas attorney general to investigate ticket scalpers who use the bots — or software programs that perform “automatic and repetitive tasks” — to buy tickets. Those found liable would face civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation.
Zaffirini’s legislation is among numerous bills filed ahead of the session’s Jan. 12 start that focus on affordability, a major campaign promise for Democrats before they swept the statewide slate in Texas and took control of the state’s House of Representatives.
Senate Bill 42 is similar to a proposal Zaffirini introduced in 2023, which Gov. Greg Abbott ultimately signed into law. However, the new version includes updates to definitions and references in the Texas Business & Commerce Code.
Zaffirini’s 2023 bill and a slew of other legislation around digital ticketing followed the disastrous rollout for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, during which fans worldwide struggled to compete with scalpers who were buying up tickets en masse.
Senate Bill 42’s future in the Texas Senate is uncertain, since the body is still under Republican control. However, efforts to rein in ticket scalping have attracted some bipartisan support nationally.
In March 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Treasury Department to go after ticket resales using bots. U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, both Tennessee Republicans, also co-authored bipartisan legislation targeting ticket resellers.
In 2016, Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, which prohibits the use of software to circumvent ticket sellers’ purchasing limits and other security measures. The Federal Trade Commission has also pursued ticket scalpers under the Trump and Biden administrations.
Fifteen states besides Texas have enacted similar laws. However, increasingly sophisticated AI agents and other AI-powered software have complicated efforts to curtail automated ticket purchases, creating a need to update existing legislation.
Combined, the state and federal legislation could amount to significant action against the lucrative ticket resale market. A University of Michigan economics publication estimated the value of the global market at $3.4 billion.
