Sept 15 (Reuters) -

U.S. regulators were investigating whether Live Nation's

Ticketmaster was doing enough to prevent bots from

illegally reselling tickets on its platform, Bloomberg News

reported on Monday, an allegation the company denied.

The probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which

examines the ticket-selling unit's compliance with the Better

Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, is at an advanced stage and a

decision on whether to pursue a case could come within weeks,

Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The 2016 law prohibits the use of bots and other methods to

bypass ticket purchase limits set by online sellers.

A spokesperson for Ticketmaster told Reuters in an emailed

statement: "We haven't violated the BOTS Act and will vigorously

defend any such claims, however we would prefer to work with the

FTC to implement policies to improve the ticketing industry."

"We believe the FTC has a fundamental misunderstanding

of Ticketmaster's policies, and is taking an excessively

expansionist view of the BOTS Act," the spokesperson added.

Ticketmaster blocks 200 million bots each day, a

fivefold increase from 2019, the spokesperson said.

Live Nation has been in U.S. regulatory crosshairs. The

Department of Justice sued the company and Ticketmaster last

year for allegedly monopolizing markets across the live concert

industry in ways that hurt artists and ticket buyers.

More recently, the FTC has sought information from

artists and fans about unfair and anticompetitive practices in

the live concert and event industries as part of a crackdown by

the Trump administration on ticket scalping.

In August, the FTC sued ticket reseller Key Investment

Group, accusing it of evading purchase limits to acquire

thousands of tickets for events, including Taylor Swift's Eras

tour, and reselling them at inflated prices.

Bloomberg said in the report that FTC investigators were

also assessing whether Ticketmaster has a financial incentive to

allow resellers to circumvent its ticket limit rules, according

to the report.

If the FTC pursues a case and Live Nation loses, the company

could face billions of dollars in penalties, as the law permits

fines of up to $53,000 per violation, Bloomberg said.

The FTC declined to comment.