The LA28 Ticket Playbook
Every drop, price tier, purchase rule and future sale window for LA28 tickets — and the scam patterns to avoid while 12 million registrants chase a finite seat map.
More than 12 million people have registered for a chance to buy LA28 tickets, per the organizing committee — up from 5 million in February, from more than 200 countries and all 50 states. That demand, and the confusion and anger that have traveled with it, is why this page exists: everything known so far about how LA28 ticketing works, what it costs, what's still coming, and how to avoid the scams that are already circulating two years out.
What has happened so far
Drop 1 ran April 9-19, 2026 and placed more than 4 million tickets. Roughly 500,000 tickets at the $28 entry price were made available first to Southern California locals, and per TicketNews, 95% of the under-$100 inventory sold during that locals window. Residents of the Los Angeles and Oklahoma City areas — OKC hosts softball and canoe slalom — claimed about 75% of Drop 1 overall.
A Visa cardholder presale followed on July 29-31, timed to the two-years-to-go milestone, and Drop 2 ran August 10-20 with tickets across every Olympic sport. Selected registrants were notified August 6-7 and given 48-hour purchase windows. Purchases are capped at 12 Olympic event tickets plus 12 soccer tournament tickets per account, with a four-ticket limit for the ceremonies.
How a drop actually works
The mechanics matter, because they trip people up. You register interest at the official site; LA28 then selects registrants and assigns time-limited purchase slots — winning the draw gets you a shopping window, not a specific seat, and popular sessions can be picked over by the time your slot opens ("What's the point of winning the lottery if it's all picked over?" as one Drop 1 buyer, Charles Culbert, put it to TicketNews). All tickets are digital-only, delivered through the official LA28 ticketing app — the official terms state flatly that physical tickets will not be accepted for entry. Sales are essentially final: refunds apply only to cancelled (not rescheduled) events, and only to the original purchaser. Transfers to friends and family happen inside the official platform, and once a recipient accepts a transfer, only their copy of the ticket remains valid.
One more line item to budget for: a 24% service fee is applied on top of face value.
What tickets cost
The affordability fight has defined LA28's ticketing year. When Drop 1 opened, fans found swimming sessions listed around $1,230, decathlon finals at $1,600, and ceremony inventory dominated by premium seats above $5,000 — this from a Games long pitched on affordability. LA28's answer, delivered by revenue chief Allison Katz Mayfield, is about distribution: nearly 50% of all Olympic tickets are priced under $200, more than 75% under $400 including finals, and only about 5% above $1,000 — the best seats at the highest-demand sessions. LA28 says the average ticket is under $200; CEO Reynold Hoover has said more $28 tickets will be released in later phases, and that the organizers are "not using dynamic pricing in this round" — with the notable caveat that "we may adjust it in the future."
What's still coming
More drops are expected from late 2026 onward, so missing Drops 1 and 2 is not the end of the line — registration for future draws remains the route in. An official verified resale program is planned for 2027, per California's attorney general, which will be the only sanctioned way to buy from other fans. The official terms already prohibit reselling tickets as part of any commercial activity. Paralympic tickets go on sale in 2027 as a separate process.
How not to get scammed
California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a formal consumer alert in April warning that scammers are already targeting LA28 buyers with counterfeit tickets and fraudulent online ticket offers. The safe-buying rules follow from how the system works:
- Buy only through official LA28 channels. Until the verified resale platform launches in 2027, there is no legitimate secondary market — any ticket offered on a marketplace, social media or a "friend of a friend" today cannot be verified and may not survive transfer rules that validate only the final in-app recipient.
- Treat payment method as the tell. Bonta's office warns against sellers demanding Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, gift cards, prepaid debit cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency — the unrecoverable channels scammers prefer.
- Be suspicious of discounts and of screenshots. A digital-only ticket shown as a PDF or screenshot is worthless; entry requires the live ticket in the official app.
- Report attempts to the California Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau, or the FBI's IC3 internet crime center.
The bottom line
Twelve million registrations against a finite seat map means most fans will not get their first choice, and the sessions everyone wants — ceremonies, swimming finals, gymnastics — will stay expensive and scarce. But the published numbers also mean the cheap seats are real: half the map under $200, entry at $28, and multiple drops still to come before July 14, 2028. The patient path — register, wait for official windows, buy only in the app, and hold for the 2027 resale platform rather than gambling on a stranger's listing — is also the only one that reliably ends with you inside a venue.