Traditionally, yes. Scalpers constituted a small fraction of the market and were largely doing temporal arbitrage: there will be a certain number of people willing to pay a higher price on Day N than on Day N-X (where Day N-X is when tickets originally went on sale).
Modern scalping constitutes a far larger fraction of the market, and consists entirely of artificially limiting supply. You don't think those pop teen idol concerts would really naturally sell out in 30 seconds, do you? That happens because somebody's running an automated system that hammers the online purchase form.
Modern scalping constitutes a far larger fraction of the market, and consists entirely of artificially limiting supply. You don't think those pop teen idol concerts would really naturally sell out in 30 seconds, do you? That happens because somebody's running an automated system that hammers the online purchase form.