Scalpers make big killing on Gins’ stint

Barangay Ginebra, no doubt, is playing its finest basketball in the post-Robert Jaworski era and so, happy days are here again for its throngs.

But wonder who are flashing the best smiles in the PBA nowadays?

Of course, people in the PBA Commissioner’s Office are in an upbeat mood as tickets wherever games are played are selling briskly.

Ginebra fans, meanwhile, couldn’t be happier. They are providing festive atmosphere in PBA venues once again with the Kings back to their winning ways.

Viva-Vintage is also in high spirits as it’s enjoying higher broadcast rating and is now attracting more ad placements.

Business is also picking up at the food outlets and beer joints inside and around the Philsports Arena and the Araneta Coliseum.

Anyone else? Of course, the "scalpers" are back in business.

For those who are not familiar with scalpers, these are people who corner many of the tickets at PBA outlets and sell them to PBA patrons at greatly increased prices.

At the start of the PBA All-Filipino Cup Final Four Wednesday, the scalpers hit paydirt as they sold courtside tickets purchased at P180 for as much as P2,000. PBA ticket outlets ran out of tickets as early as Tuesday.

It was the first time in a long while the PBA played before a sell-out crowd.

For today’s games, courtside, lower level and special ringside tickets have been sold out, too, as early as yesterday. It’s not a wild guess many tickets are in the scalpers’ pockets.

PBA officials said they are helpless despite actions taken to check this age-old practice since there are no laws prohibiting scalpers from doing their business.

At least at the Araneta Coliseum, scalpers don’t operate openly since the Quezon City Council, through the initiative of former councilor Franz Pumaren, passed an anti-scalping bill a few years back.

The best known measure the PBA put up to prevent scalpers from cornering tickets was limiting an individual to a maximum purchase of two tickets. However, scalpers have a way of getting as many tickets as they want — by getting other people to buy at the ticket outlets.