> It’s perfectly rational for a scalper to regularly purchase more tickets than they sell due to the kind of markup their looking for. At say 4x they could on average sell 1/2 the tickets while doubling their investment.

True, but in that case they've added more value than they've subtracted. That artists insist on pricing every concert to sell out is a big part of the problem here; you'd get a more functional market by accepting a few empty seats to give some slack.