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Tickets for the chance to see British tennis hopeful Andy Murray play in the men’s final of the Wimbledon championship have been rocketing in price, with one tout offering to sell centre court tickets for £20,000 ($32,636) each, according to media reports.
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Sharon Lorimer |
Murray, the UK’s number one male tennis player, stormed into the semi-finals of the prestigious grad-slam Wednesday, sparking a buying frenzy for final tickets in the hope that he would make it.
Ticket-retail Website topseats.co.uk advertised seats at the final for £3,950 each, while getmein.com had tickets for sale at £5,500 each. But one particular online tout hoped to get £20,000 for just one ticket, UK newspapers reported.
“They’re tickets which should not become a currency for ticket touts to make a profit on, or anyone for that matter,” Johnny Perkins, Wimbledon spokesperson, told CNBC.com.
There is a chance that the buyer of the £20,000 ticket may not even be able to watch the match if they are sold a non-tradable ticket, Perkins said.
Only “debenture” tickets, which are bought as part of a large batch of Wimbledon tickets covering 5-years worth of tournaments, can be freely sold on, the spokesman said.
“We are trying to prevent people from having a desperately unhappy experience … If they are in any doubt they should check with the debenture office,” he said.
Murray is odds-on favorite to reach the final along with Switzerland’s Roger Federer, but bookies are giving almost equal odds for the two players to actually win.
“On the fixed odds here at extrabet.com he (Murray) is 11-to-5, so 11 pounds back for every 5 that you put on,” Chris Shillington, head of PR at Extrabet.com, told CNBC.
But the gaming inertest in the Scottish-born tennis star may be skewed, according to Shillington, because of a tendency for British people to back a fellow countryman.
If Murray does reach the final and eventually claim the men’s singles title, he will be the first Brit to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry’s last win in 1936.
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