Legislation to sanction against the reselling of tickets in Italy is a step closer to becoming law after diluted proposals were passed by Parliament.
The legislation, accepted this week by the Chamber of Deputies, must still be approved within 30 days by the justice, culture and economic ministries, but is not expected to be opposed.
The revised bill that was agreed ostensibly retains the ban on the commercial reselling of tickets, with a maximum fine of €180,000 (£152,000/$191,000) against offenders maintained.
However, the minimum threshold has been reduced from €30,000 to €5,000. Also, after an all-out ban was initially proposed, sanctions will not be applied unless there is evidence that tickets were bought and sold to profiteer.
The draft reads: “The sale or any other form of placement of securities of access to show activities carried out by a natural person on an occasional basis is not sanctioned provided that there is no commercial purpose.”
The bill maintains provision that exchanges will be held responsible if found to be facilitating the illegal resale of tickets. They risk being blocked in Italy should they fail to prevent unlawful profiteering.
Meanwhile, the scale of the scalping problem in Italy has again been exposed on the Le Iene current affairs show on national broadcaster Italia 1.
Following an interview earlier this month with Live Nation Italy chief executive Roberto De Luca, who admitted his company’s links to reselling sites, presenter Matteo Viviani this week spoke to a self-confessed scalper, who claimed to make more than €50,000 per year simply by trading on sites such as Viagogo, Seatwave and TicketBis.
The scalper, who went by the name Francesco, said: "The secret? Having money and knowledge. I put 50 people in front of a computer and do a set. The secret is to know the right tricks: on Ticketmaster you must delete history and cookies, and always refresh the page.”
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