As Swifties across Australia prepare for another round of Hunger Games on Friday in a bid to secure tickets to Taylor Swift’s Sydney and Melbourne shows, Ticketek has admitted its booking system isn’t actually a queue but more like a lottery.

When presale tickets went on sale for the Eras tour earlier this week, they sold out in a matter of hours after 4 million users vied to secure the 450,000-odd tickets up for sale.

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Punters on social media reported confusion around the ticketing process; some who had been waiting on a loading screen since opening were left without tickets, while others who logged on well after were able to quickly secure seats.

That’s because Ticketek doesn’t allocate tickets on a first come, first served basis. Rather, once a person has logged into the waiting “lounge”, they are picked at random.

“The randomisation starts once the on-sale commences, so there is no advantage for fans to jump on hours before,” a spokesperson for Ticketek’s parent company TEG said in a statement.

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The spokesperson said security protections around the system are designed to prevent bots from snapping up all the tickets.

In light of that, there has been some concern that fans might have been penalised for logging on from multiple devices on the one network. One family said they had six different devices connected in the living room all at once, but Guardian Australia understands the system would not flag such users as potential bots.

The spokesperson said fans patiently waiting for tickets on Friday should log on 15 minutes early so they’re ready, and not refresh their browser once in the lounge.

The TEG spokesperson said the company was using “industry-leading” technology and is prepared for the flood of traffic on Friday.