Super Bowl LX Tickets: Don’t Fall for an (Expensive) Scam

Super Bowl LX will bring tens of thousands of football fans to the Bay Area for Sunday’s game in Santa Clara.

And maybe there’s a part of you that’s tempted to try to snag a last-minute ticket yourself to watch the Seattle Seahawks face off against the New England Patriots at Levi’s Stadium — especially if you can somehow find a deal on a seat?

Not so fast. At the time of writing, the cheapest ticket for Super Bowl LX available on StubHub was at least $5,200, and something much closer to the field can range from $8,000 all the way up to $17,000. So with such hefty price tags, local officials have issued recommendations to avoid falling for scammers who are selling fake tickets online — or outside Levi’s Stadium itself.

“If you’re buying from a stranger, the chance of that being a scam is very high, and you’re going to end up losing all your money,” Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney James Gibbons-Shapiro said.

“And then it won’t be ‘the Patriots lost’ or ‘the Seahawks lost,’” he warned. “It’ll be you who lost, and we don’t want that to happen.”

Keep reading for how to spot a Super Bowl ticket scam, and what to do if you’re targeted. And rest assured: there are still plenty of ways to watch the Super Bowl in the Bay Area for free – or for a fraction of the cost of a Levi’s Stadium ticket, real or fake.

• Jump straight to: I got scammed for a Super Bowl ticket. What can I do?

Why should I stick to the reputable third-party sites?

StubHub, SeatGeek, TicketMaster and SuiteHop are some of the verified websites where folks are reselling their tickets. But once you make contact with a seller, Gibbons-Shapiro said, make sure you make the purchase on the website through which you contacted this person — and not on another platform.

Scammers often promise you “a better deal” if you make the payment using instant payment sites like Zelle, Venmo and Cash App, but this suggestion is motivated by the fact that it’s easier for them to keep your money that way.

“You should never do that because you don’t know this person, and you should never make a side deal off of a reputable site,” Gibbons-Shapiro said.

And if folks are planning to show up to Levi’s Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday to look for scalpers, they should keep in mind that reselling tickets on stadium grounds is actually a misdemeanor in California. And even if the scalper is offering you a really good deal, that’s still a reason to be suspicious.

“Please don’t show up to the Super Bowl expecting to buy a ticket to get in,” Gibbons-Shapiro said. “Because the likelihood that you’re going to buy a fake ticket and lose all your money is very high.”

How do I know if the tickets I’m being offered are real?

Super Bowl tickets are known to feature colorful designs that change each year, with a list of past games on the backside. But scammers are very good at copying this design when making fake tickets, Gibbons-Shapiro said — meaning “we can’t give you any advice about how to tell the difference between a real ticket and a fake ticket,” he said.

“The fact that it looks real does not mean that it’s real,” cautioned Gibbons-Shapiro.

That’s why it’s important to buy your ticket on a third-party ticket resale site that will deliver the ticket directly to you. Platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook Marketplace usually will not verify if what’s being offered is what’s actually sold.

And even if you’re using reliable third-party sites, check the reseller’s refund policy to see whether they offer a guarantee regarding the authenticity and timely arrival of the tickets.

I just got scammed. What can I do?

First of all, make sure to document all your communication with the person who promised to sell you a ticket — and take screenshots of those messages in case they attempt to delete anything from their end.

If you were scammed online or over the phone:

You can then report the situation to your local police department, as the city where you live is where the crime took place.

If you bought the fake ticket in person from a scalper: 

Contact the police department of the city where the transaction took place. “If that happened right outside the stadium, that would be Santa Clara Police Department,” Gibbons-Shapiro said.

You can also file a complaint with the California Attorney General’s office or the Better Business Bureau.

Gibbons-Shapiro said his office is ready to prosecute anyone who sells fake Super Bowl tickets, adding that he would consider that to be a felony. “That’s something that we’re going to prosecute and hold you accountable for,” he said.