One of the most frustrating tricks in the ticket resale business is something called speculative ticketing. That’s when someone lists a ticket for sale before they actually have the ticket. We’ve discussed the problem many times, but Kid Rock brought it to a head recently during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

If you haven’t run across spec ticking before, here it is: The seller is essentially betting they will be able to obtain the ticket later. If they succeed, they deliver the ticket to the buyer. If they don’t, the buyer often ends up with a refund—or a replacement ticket of uncertain quality—instead of the seat they thought they purchased.

For fans and artists, the bigger problem is what speculative listings do to the market before the onsale even begins.

When fans check resale marketplaces and see hundreds of tickets already listed—often at inflated prices—it creates the impression that tickets are already scarce or sold out. That perception alone can push fans to panic-buy at higher prices, even when the actual ticket inventory hasn’t even been released yet.

In other words, speculative listings can make the market look hotter and tighter than it really is.

Ironically, most of the major resale platforms already say this practice is prohibited on their service. Their terms of service typically ban selling tickets that the seller does not actually possess.

Yet those same marketplaces often display large numbers of listings that appear to be exactly that: tickets offered for sale before the seller could reasonably have them in hand.

California is now attempting to address this problem directly. A new proposal would make it clear that selling tickets you do not possess—or do not have the legal right to sell—is a deceptive practice under consumer protection law. It would also allow state and local authorities to enforce those rules, rather than leaving fans to fight the battle on their own.

That proposal is California Assembly Bill 1349 (AB 1349).

AB 1349 aims to close the gap between what resale platforms claim to prohibit and what actually happens in the marketplace. The basic principle is simple: if a ticket is listed for sale, it should be a real ticket controlled by the seller, not a speculative promise that may or may not be fulfilled later.

The bill will not fix every problem in the ticketing ecosystem. But it represents an important step toward restoring a basic level of honesty to the resale market. After all, if the platforms themselves say you shouldn’t sell a ticket you don’t have, putting that rule into law should not be controversial.

For artists and fans alike, the idea behind AB 1349 comes down to something pretty straightforward:

You shouldn’t be able to sell a ticket you don’t actually own.