Highlights
- The Tokyo Olympic organizers are investigating the sale of 6,700 tickets for the show worth around $1.67 million
- These were obtained by Japanese residents on an online site for a lottery
- The demand for tickets has been much higher than all the other years, because of which the number of fraudulent sales hiked
- A new law was passed banning the sale of such tickets and increasing the fine to 1 million yen and a one year jail time
- Lotteries have been organised by the committee itself to provide tickets to the Japanese tickets
Tokyo Olympic organizers are currently investigating the sale of over 6700 tickets sold fraudulently online in the form of a lottery, to Japanese citizens using fake IDs.
These tickets have been estimated at a worth of $1.67 million. This time, unlike the last year’s Olympic event at Rio De Janeiro, has generated a lot of interest and the demand for tickets has increased almost 10 fold, which is more than most other years. Because of this, Japan passed a law to ban the fraudulent sale of tickets increasing the fine to 1 million Yen and 1 year of imprisonment. But, unfortunately, the law had many loopholes- it does not include tickets bought for free or through a lottery or given as a gift, or without a purchaser’s name.
In August, over 1.4 million people applied for the tickets in Japan through the lottery, and only 350,000 tickets were given to 120,000 tickets. Japanese citizens are to get 80-85% of the tickets.
Last year, a lot of the tickets for the Olympics at Rio De Janeiro were left unsold and the audience was empty. The Olympics Committee is estimated to earn a total of around $800 million this year. The Olympics 2020 will be held in Tokyo on the 24th of July and ends on 9th August 2020.
