Ticket touting must cease

Sep 07, 2026 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists

Dem Boys Seh…

(Kaieteur News) – Dem boys seh that Guyana does have a wonderful way of making yesterday’s nuisance into today’s national institution.

Back in the days when cinema was the big entertainment in town and people used to line up to see cowboys, karate men and James Bond save the world, there was another little industry operating outside the cinema whenever a blockbuster movie was being screened. Men used to get hold of tickets and resell them to people who did not want to stand in the long line or who come too late to get a ticket from the official booth inside. Only difference was that the ticket that cost one dollar inside might cost two or three dollars outside.

The then PNC government apparently had enough of that business. Whether the crackdown was entirely lawful is another question, but the authorities did not treat ticket touting as an entrepreneurial achievement. People were arrested for buying up tickets and reselling them at a considerable markup.

Fast-forward to today and dem boys seh Guyana has discovered progress.

Now is CPL cricket that is the hot ticket. People who genuinely want to go to the match find themselves hunting high and low for tickets. Yet, when match day come, you could see dozens of fellas outside the ground with tickets in hand, quite prepared to sell them to you—for a price.

And the remarkable thing is that everybody seems to know what is happening, except, apparently, the authorities.

Dem boys seh that if a man buys up a scarce commodity with the deliberate intention of reselling it at an inflated price, that is not exactly philanthropy. It is touting. Imagine fuh de finals people selling one tic ket for as high as $30,000.

And when the ordinary fan cannot get a ticket at the official price while somebody outside is making a little fortune from scarcity, the system is rewarding the very behaviour that creates the scarcity.

Perhaps it is time parliament deal with the matter. A simple law could prohibit the bulk purchase and unauthorised resale of tickets above the official price, while allowing genuine transfers.

Because dem boys seh, if the cinema days could stop ticket touting, surely CPL cricket could stop it too. Or is this another case where the authorities can see everything—except what is happening right in front of them?

Talk half. Leff half.

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Dem Boys Seh, national institution, nuisance, Ticket touting

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