Purchasing concert tickets has long been a high-stakes affair, with popular events often selling out within minutes. Increasingly, however, fans are competing against automated ticket-buying programs, commonly referred to as bots, that can snap up seats in seconds before reselling them at higher prices. This has distorted access not only to concert tickets but also to everyday services such as train ticket reservations. Purchasing a ticket has always been "very luck-based," said Bryce Sng, a 23-