Penn State Police saw an increase in ticket scalping for the football team's first Big Ten game against Illinois Saturday, Capt. Bill Moerschbacher said.

Tracie Bogus, police records coordinator, said 11 instances of scalping have been reported to police this year, and nine of those occurred Saturday.

Moerschbacher said Friday he anticipated Saturday's game would have the highest number of scalping incidents so far this year because it was a bigger game. He said he also expects to see an increase in activity for the Oct. 18 homecoming game against Michigan.

There are usually two violations that occur with a scalping instance, Moerschbacher said. The first, he said, is selling without a license. The second is selling a ticket for a value greater than allowed by law, he said.

Moerschbacher said an individual must have a license to sell tickets, and tickets can only be sold for $5 more than face value or 25 percent more than face value, whichever is greater.

To sell tickets, Penn State also requires individuals to have permission to solicit, something Moershbacher said "most likely will not be granted."

Moerschbacher said police, both in uniform and undercover, patrol scalping before games.

"We want to get information on the person who sold it. We may have already dealt with them, so we might know who they are," Moerschbacher said.

He added that many times scalping victims are unable to provide a detailed description of the person who sold them the ticket.

"Most of the time, people don't pay a lot of attention to who they're getting tickets from. They just want to get a ticket," he said, adding the first scalping offense is a summary offense and the second offense is a misdemeanor.

Moerschbacher said police see more instances of scalping with general admission tickets, but individuals also scalp student tickets.

Police also get complaints from people who have been sold a counterfeit ticket, Moerschbacher said. He added there have been football weekends in the past during which police have encountered multiple instances of counterfeit tickets.

"It's sometimes difficult for someone to tell what a real ticket looks like versus a fraudulent one," he said. "Someone might spend hundreds of dollars on a ticket, and it might not get them in the stadium."

"Generally what happens is someone buys a ticket for a pretty good price and then they come to the gate, and the ticket doesn't register, or it shows it's already been scanned."

Moerschbacher said individuals should be cautious when buying tickets.

"We generally try to remind folks that when you buy tickets from some place other than Penn State, you really don't know what you're getting," he said.