[Jgrubb]

As a native Atlantan who was 18 during the 1996 games, I recall tickets being absolutely easy to get (many for below face value) pretty much anywhere you went in the Olympic village area. If you don't care which event you get into, the easiest hack is to just go down there and buy them in person.

[micheljansen]

The London 2012 Olympic tickets are not for resale. The terms and conditions for the tickets dictate that they cannot be resold and any tickets that are resold are considered invalid. Of course they cannot possibly check that for all tickets, but so far it seems to work because I haven't seen anyone trying to resell tickets.

[JimmyL]

There are also much stronger laws (and enforcement practices) around reselling sports tickets in the UK than in the US.

[micheljansen]

Yep, reselling tickets is actually illegal and can land you in jail (or at least a hefty fine): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19109747

[coob]

This is certainly not the case for London 2012. I was at the athletics on Friday evening, the park is rammed. There were a couple of touts on the walk from the stadium but only offering to purchase tickets rather than selling them. No tickets available at the box office.