SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Trade Commission and seven states Thursday sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, claiming the entertainment giant had broken the law by allowing brokers to buy up millions of dollars of tickets and resell them at higher prices.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, accused Ticketmaster of deceptive practices that advertised lower prices than were available, as well as falsely claiming it set limits on the number of tickets people could buy. Brokers bought thousands of tickets at face value, then resold them for higher prices on Ticketmaster, allowing the company to collect additional fees, according to the suit.

In one case, a broker purchased more than 9,000 tickets on Tic

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