It's a shame ebay is such a useless place to buy Olympic tickets. All the sellers think they're going to make a fortune. And, as often as not, there's a sucker willing to pay a sky-high price.

You can tell from the very low traffic counts on those ebay items that there are few Western tourists travelling to Beijing for the Games. The question then becomes how strong is Chinese demand, and what kind of mark-up are the locals willing to pay. Since every local sale has been mobbed, it seems like demand is strong. I'm less sure about the mark-up. Ticket prices for the "marquee" events like swimming, diving and gymnastics were already pretty high by Chinese standards, so I'm not sure what the market will bear. Also, you have the supposed (but probably not too realistic) crackdown on scalping.