Michigan OK’s ticket bot ban as Legislature quietly ends 2025

Michigan lawmakers wrapped up voting for 2025 on Thursday
The state House and Senate finalized roughly 30 bills to cap a historically slow year
Among the bills passed: A ticket scalping bot ban, optional firearm safety courses for schools and child care center improvements

LANSING — Michigan is poised to become the next state to ban online ticket scalping bots after lawmakers Thursday approved a two–bill package now on its way to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk for likely signature.

Under the legislation, which passed in broadly bipartisan House and Senate votes, a person could be subject to a maximum civil fine of $5,000 per ticket acquired if found to have somehow circumvented or disabled measures to enforce online ticket purchase limits through a scalping bot.

Consumers could notify the attorney general’s office of potential violations through a consumer complaint form.

The bills were among roughly 30 pieces of legislation finalized in the Michigan Legislature on Thursday as lawmakers wrapped up the final session day of 2025. They’re expected back at the Capitol in early January.

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Noticeably absent from the year-end agenda: An economic development plan, which Whitmer said lawmakers had agreed to formulate by year’s end after they defunded her signature business incentive program in October.

After Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee voted unilaterally to end an estimated $644 million in state work projects previously approved by Democrats, reigniting partisan tensions, it became clear a bipartisan economic development deal would be difficult.

“As you might expect, I have a lot to say about this year, but right now all I’m going to do is wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year,” Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, said as part of a floor speech to close out the legislative year Thursday.

That sentiment was not shared by House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, who told reporters just before the House adjourned that the Legislature has had “the best year of the years that Whitmer has been governor.”

As of Dec. 19, the chambers have introduced a combined 2,186 bills, just 38 of which have been signed into law — not including what passed the Legislature on Thursday. It’s believed to be the fewest number of bills signed during a legislative session since before the Civil War.

Other bills heading to Whitmer after Thursday’s votes include a Senate effort to allow child care centers to install temporary locking devices or systems for use in a potential mass shooter incident, and a push from the House for firearm safety to be taught in Michigan schools.

Hall called the firearm education bill one of the more important pieces of legislation to pass out of the House and Senate in the final days of the year, along with the effort to ban ticket scalping bots.

“Being able to provide optional hunter safety training in schools, that’s a pretty big change,” Hall said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of schools take advantage of that and be teaching firearm safety.”

Like with the push to add locking mechanisms to child care institutions, the effort to ban ticket scalping bots has been a long time in the making.

With Whitmer’s expected signature, Michigan would become the 14th state to ban the practice of ticket bot scalping, alongside Oregon, North Carolina, Minnesota, Tennessee and more.

While bots have long been used to purchase tickets online, the practice received stricter scrutiny after pop superstar Taylor Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour.

Tickets initially worth anywhere from $250 to $500 resold for up to $10,000. For a show in East Rutherford, New Jersey, some tickets were available but at a hefty $17,000. In Boston, a pair of VIP seats were listed for $22,000.

The move led many, including members of Congress, to criticize Ticketmaster for allowing bots to run rampant as the company’s website crashed or abruptly kicked users from virtual queues, some of whom had been in lines for hours.While Congress banned the use of ticket bots in 2016, officials say it’s often hard to punish these actors at the state level.