Always purchase tickets from authentic sources

Indian fans cheer up during the ICC Men`s Cricket World Cup 2023 match between India and Pakistan, at Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad. Pic/PTI

In the build up to the big-ticket India v Pakistan World Cup clash, there were reports about apprehending people selling fake match tickets. There was a fear that though some touts and their fake tickets were caught and confiscated, there could be other such illegal tickets that had already been sold to unsuspecting buyers. And these fears came true when the electronic turnstiles at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad detected some dodgy tickets.

Every match ticket has a unique barcode, which is scanned by the electronic turnstile and only when a green light appears, is a person allowed to go through. If the light turns red, the ticket is not genuine. Some fake tickets may not be detected by naked eye, but the turnstiles will catch it.

Many high-octane sporting events do have this problem in the build up to matches/competition. Verify when you buy tickets and always get them from an authentic source. The organisers will have one authentic website where fans will be told where to buy tickets/how to go about buying them. There are touts who do wholesale booking prior to a sports event and then sell these at double/triple the rates. The organisers can crack down on those.

The ordinary sports fan, desperate to get into a stadium, may fall into the trap and may pay twice and thrice as much for tickets. Many of these will not be genuine. The risk has doubled with online buying.

Entire websites are being duplicated too, posing a very serious problem. Just like ‘ticket in black' has been practically obliterated from the cinema landscape, though that may be a different scenario, work should be on to declare the tout as out, forever.