Calls for stricter rules after bot bookers detected on Hong Kong sports app

Hong Kong authorities have uncovered robot-operated accounts booking public indoor sports venues just a week after a new anti-touting policy took effect, prompting experts to call for stronger measures against scalping. A Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) spokesman told the South China Morning Post that authorities had detected bots being used to book public indoor sports venues on its SmartPLAY app. “We have identified accounts using different means, computer programs or other automated tools to conduct booking transactions or disrupt normal operations on SmartPLAY, and we are proactively handling these cases to tackle users who tout bookings,” the spokesman said. But the department did not reveal how many accounts it had identified or how it weeded them out, citing the need to keep scalpers from evading its crackdown. The department has introduced a range of measures since January 21 to clamp down on rampant touting at indoor basketball and volleyball courts. These include a 360-day booking ban without prior notice for accounts found using computer programs or other automated tools. Other new rules require bookers to provide details of two other users and show up with one of them on the day. The department has also revoked the “standby” arrangement for these courts. Currently, the department allows some venues to be freed up for others at no charge if the original hirers fail to appear 10 minutes after the start time. “The LCSD has observed that certain hirers of indoor basketball and volleyball courts deliberately skip booked sessions,” a spokesman said in a public notice in December while announcing the new policies. “[They] are suspected of engaging in touting by arranging for other users to claim booked courts via the standby arrangement.” Another department spokesman said residents had generally welcomed the new measures. But a regular hirer and an IT expert said that extra administrative steps were needed to eliminate the problem, while noting the high demand for venues. Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said SmartPLAY administrators could detect booking patterns suggesting the use of automated tools. These anomalies include unusually high booking speeds and instances where users skip multiple registration pages. “For example, these applications will not [spend time] picking a date and time, but can quickly input everything via a script specifying which show they would like to buy,” Fong said. Other signs included repetitive behaviour during booking, as Fong said that automated tools followed fixed scripts rather than adapting to circumstances. Fong added that touting syndicates could also hire people to make bookings, with the number of devices and accounts available being higher than that of an ordinary hirer. The expert said revoking the standby arrangement would help curb touting syndicates’ use of manpower to monopolise venues. But he warned that touting was likely to persist under the new policies, as scalpers could still profit by reselling sports venue bookings at high prices to those willing to buy. “[The government can] make touting more costly, leaving little profit for scalpers,” Fong said. Touting involving the use of another person’s identity card to check in at a venue is against the law. A man who used another person’s ID card to check in at a tennis court in Victoria Park in 2024 and another man who lent his card to someone else were each sentenced to 80 hours of community service in January. Keith Rumjahn, founder of a fitness and sports apps company that developed an automated booking agent to counter scalpers targeting sports facilities and event tickets, expressed mixed views on the new anti-touting policies. He noted he had not tried using his programme on SmartPLAY last week for fear of being banned. But the businessman said he believed the bot ban and related measures were merely “short-term solutions”. “Within six to 12 months, scalpers would find new ways to cheat the system,” Rumjahn said. “It would not take long before things return to how they were, when booking courts was difficult and scalpers resold slots at a premium.” While Rumjahn agreed that the measures might free up some additional booking slots, he said overall demand for scalped reservations was likely to remain strong. He added that prime slots on weekday evenings and weekends would still be highly sought after, leaving players with continued incentives to buy from scalpers. Besides scalpers, Rumjahn noted that professional leagues and full-time coaches also competed with leisure players such as himself for public courts, as their high demand or income depended on regular access to facilities. “In an ideal world, if scalpers were eliminated and every one of them caught, coaches and leagues would still book up [the courts],” Rumjahn said.

Calls for stricter rules after bot bookers detected on Hong Kong sports app

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Authorities say they found accounts using computer programs or other automated tools for bookings just a week after new anti-touting policy began

Authorities say they found accounts using computer programs or other automated tools for bookings just a week after new anti-touting policy began