Super Bowl 53: Police warn football fans of counterfeit tickets ahead of game

It may be the hottest ticket on the planet, but it you are still trying to score a ticket for the 2019 Super Bowl, brokers say you may want to wait until Friday.

Police are warning football fans of counterfeit tickets ahead of Super Bowl 53. Federal authorities say they're cracking down to prevent the sale of fake tickets.

Atlanta ticket broker Kevin Mendel told WSB, "I wouldn't be in a rush and say 'I gotta buy now."

Mendel spent the last week selling his tickets on secondary markets, such as Stubhub, Vivid Seats and SeatGeek.

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According to SeatGeek, the cheapest ticket is selling for about $2,500, compared with the average ticket costing more than $6,800.

The most expensive ticket on the site at the time of publication was about $93,000.

“Friday is when things could change and that’s really when you need to start looking at it,” Mendel said.

He added it’s also important to remember that there are scammers who are selling counterfeit tickets.

“Only stick to a handful of the marketplace resellers,” Mendel said. “The online protected ones that you know the big names.”

Related: How the Super Bowl tickets game is played: Who gets them and at what cost

Last year in Minnesota, numerous football fans purchased fake tickets to the big game.

“For criminals, they need to know that we’re watching,” Bryan Cox, spokesman for Homeland Security Investigations, told WSB. “We will find you and you face serious penalties and to the public, beware. They are here. People are going to scam you so don’t buy anywhere other than a reputable source,” Cox said.

Federal investigators said that although the NFL puts special holograms and other features on tickets that help distinguished real ones from the fakes ones, most people won’t be able to tell the difference, which is why it’s important to buy from a reputable source.

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