Be On The Lookout For Fake Super Bowl Tickets

Added on Jan 23, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

Any major event like the forthcoming Super Bowl in Dallas will bring out its share of opportunistic bottom feeders. And, no, I’m not talking about Jerry Jones. If you’re planning on going to the game and are thinking about buying tickets online or from a scalper you need to be on high alert for fakes. This is yet another good reason why you should watch the game at home and place your wagers at an online sportsbook. Whether you pony up for tickets inside the stadium or decide to hang out in the Cowboys Stadium parking lot the NFL Fan Plaza here’s some tips to make sure your ducats are legit.

From a numerical standpoint, counterfeit tickets aren’t a huge problem–in past years between 100 and 250 people per year have shown up at the gates with fake tickets. Since we’re talking about stadiums that hold 80,000+ people that means roughly 1/3 of 1% of the available Super Bowl tickets are fake. Of course those numbers are small consolation if you’re one of the rubes who drops a couple of g’s for a fake ticket. Despite these minuscule numbers, there’s no shortage of ‘consumer watchdog’ and other ninnies looking to make it seem like a bigger problem than it really is so they can get some media attention.

Dallas ticket broker Jeff Green actually knows what he’s talking about and knows all of the security measures that the NFL uses to prevent counterfeiting. The tickets for Super Bowl XLV include thick, heavy paper with bar codes, holograms, raised ink and heat-sensitive logos that disappear when you touch them. In other words, its not something you’re going to be able to duplicate on your HP inkjet printer. Green concludes:

“You could pass a fake $100 bill a lot easier than you could pass a fake Super Bowl ticket.”

Of course that won’t stop suckers from getting scammed, nor will it keep bluenoses and scolds from acting like this is a really serious problem. Jeanette Kopko, a spokeswoman for the Dallas Better Business Bureau, suggests that you should be especially afraid of that new fangled ‘series of tubes’ called the Internet:

“You don’t really know who’s behind it, and you should know who the seller is. Anytime there’s a big event in the news, scammers will focus on that and catch you off guard. If it sounds too good to be true, trust your instincts and don’t buy.”

But don’t think you’ll be able to have free access to a secondary market of tickets around the stadium on gameday. Johnny Law won’t have that, according to Arlington police spokeswoman Tiara Ellis Richard:

“We will be running operations and actively looking for scalpers.”

We can only hope that the SWAT team won’t be involved. The best advice we can give you is to don’t be a sucker. But if you’re really dumb enough to get scammed by fake Super Bowl tickets you basically get what you deserve. You’d be better off staying at home, drinking some suds and laying some Super Bowl bets at a fine sportsbook like Sports Interaction.

“It’s morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money” –W.C. Fields