China has sent an Olympic ticket tout to jail for two-and-a-half years, and fined him 450,000 yuan for illegally selling on over 500 passes to the Summer Games, in the biggest such case to come to court in Beijing.

The 41-year-old had agreed to arranged tickets for two companies at prices 50 to 60 percent higher than their face value, the official Xinhua agency quoted a district court saying.

He then used identities illegally obtained from a friend's construction company and other sources to spend 230,000 yuan on the online ticketing system set up for the Games. The man was arrested in May, two months after Beijing warned that it was cracking down on scalping and would detain serious offenders for up to four years' "re-education through labour".

Despite the ban there was a thriving black market for the tickets, with the most sought-after ones for the opening ceremony offered on the internet for up to 150,000 yuan.

Some 7 million Olympic tickets went on sale, three-quarters of them inside China. All sold out, though not all the venues were full during the Games.

Other touts, including several foreigners, were caught during the two-week long Games selling passes near the venues.