Tomorrow night's football game between undefeated University of Hawai'i and Washington is officially sold out, so ticket sellers on eBay and craigslist continued to get above-asking prices yesterday.

Several sellers who were interviewed yesterday, such as Navy Chief Petty Officer Matt Geurts, insist they're die-hard UH fans at heart, not mercenaries.

Geurts, who lives in Navy housing off Nimitz Highway, listed three front-row end-zone tickets on eBay and craigslist on Monday. By yesterday afternoon, the bid for all three tickets was up to $425.

Early in the season, Geurts had purchased the tickets through the UH athletic department Web site for $27 each.

It's the first time he has offered his UH football tickets for sale, and he's secretly praying he doesn't get his asking price of $600 — or $200 per ticket.

"I honestly hope they don't sell, because I want to go to the game," said Geurts, who has been a UH fan since he was stationed here 15 years ago for his first tour in Hawai'i. "But I promised my wife that if I can get a certain amount, I'd be dumb not to sell them and watch the game on TV."

There are no laws against selling tickets for more than face value in Hawai'i, said John McNamara, UH's associate athletic director of external affairs. So UH officials warn after-market buyers "they're in a buyer-beware situation," McNamara said.

"We can't ensure the authenticity of any tickets that were purchased from secondary ticket sources," McNamara said. "We want to caution fans to be careful who they're buying tickets from."

Ten people were turned away from the UH-Fresno State game on Nov. 10 when a 2-year-old ticket-scanning system at Aloha Stadium showed the fans' tickets to be "invalid" for various reasons.

"They might have been duplicates or for the wrong game," McNamara said. "We're glad that after we issued an advisory to the fans, we had no incidents at the Boise State game. Any invalid tickets are not going to slip through the screening process. We don't want to be in a situation where we have to turn anybody away."

McNamara, the associate athletic director, was still getting phone calls yesterday from people asking for tickets.

"I just tell them, 'sold out means sold out,' " McNamara said. "It's like that department-wide. It's a good problem to have."

BETTER SEATS

It also means good times for UH fan and amateur ticket broker Ralph Duskin of Mo'ili'ili, who works full time as an insurance inspector.

Duskin listed a pair of 30-yard-line tickets in Section H in the 17th row on craigslist for $600, which had a top bid yesterday of $300.

Another pair on the 30-yard line, in section NN in Row 19 — closer to the UH student section — got lowered to a $650 asking price when Duskin failed to get his $850 minimum bid.

He had no response to a craigslist ad for two $850 tickets in the 12th row of Section M behind the Washington bench.

"It's kind of funny, because they're actually the best seats, closer to the 50-yard line," Duskin said. "I don't think the locals are crazy about those. But I was catering to the crazy traveling fan who wanted to be right behind the Washington bench, right in the heart of things."

Duskin bought the tickets weeks ago on craigslist to resell. He considers himself a rabid UH fan and insists that he only buys and sells tickets to pay for his beer, food, parking and UH apparel throughout the season.

"It doesn't subsidize me being a fan," Duskin said. "It subsidizes me being a UH fanatic."

Duskin attends each home game with a friend who has season tickets. And Duskin has already booked a rental car and four nights at the New Orleans Hilton for a possible UH appearance at the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

As soon as they go on sale, Duskin plans to buy six Sugar Bowl tickets — four for him and his family and two to sell online to help defray travel costs.

Army Capt. T.D. Malone bought four tickets to the Boise State game and four more for Washington long before the season began while he was stationed in Iraq with the HSC 209th Aviation Support Battalion from Wheeler Army Air Field.

Malone and an Army buddy used two of the tickets for the Boise State game, and Malone listed the other pair on craigslist because their wives couldn't go. Malone ended up selling the adjacent seats for $50 each — $9 more than his $41 cost.

Malone wants to go to tomorrow's game as well but will probably have to work tomorrow off-loading the unit's equipment from Iraq and working on a college class assignment due on Monday. Tomorrow is also the last day his mother-in-law will be in town.

"I'm a huge sports fan," Malone said, "but there's a 99 percent chance I won't be able to go."

Malone has his four tickets in Section NN of the red section, Row 4, listed on eBay for a total of $185. Yesterday, 20 hours after they went on sale, three bidders had already offered $285.

IT'S A LIVING

Then there's Daniel Dillard, of Hawai'i Kai.

While he, too, calls himself a huge UH fan, Dillard also makes his living buying and selling high-end, premium seats through his business, Special Event Ticket Services.

Dillard runs his full-time business out of his pearl-blue Mercedes S500, with the license plates "TKTS."

To him, Malone and other amateur ticket-sellers are "crazy underwear pirates. They're just sitting around in their underwear listing tickets on craigslist and eBay."

Dillard then reached into the left pocket of his cargo shorts and fanned out a pile of 30 first- through fifth-row sideline tickets — each priced at a cool $500.

They're what remain of 150 tickets Dillard has already sold for tomorrow's game. But he plans to buy and sell even more right up until game time.

"No one's going to pay five times face value just to sit on the roof of Aloha Stadium when you can watch the game for free on ESPN," Dillard said. "I get really good tickets and sell them at a premium."

Dillard has a regular list of clients who include lawyers and car dealers, and a cell phone full of numbers of hotel concierges looking to accommodate out-of-town guests demanding premium seats to any kind of event in town.

"For UH football," Dillard said, "I only carry orange, field-level tickets in the first five rows of the sidelines. For Boise State, my average price was $300. If I don't get any responses, I lower it. If I get a lot of responses, I raise it. It's like a stock."

Many of his football customers "go back and forth all game long for a drink to show everybody they're in the front row," Dillard said. "It's a power seat, and they like to be in it."

Dillard plans to go to the UH-Washington game with his wife, Dasha, 15-year-old stepson, Nicky, and 3-year-old son, Patrick.

Unlike his high-end clients, Dillard plans to use whatever tickets he has left for himself, or whatever he can find at the last minute, if he has to.

He's been doing it this way for more than 20 years and got his start back in New Jersey in 1981 while selling Keebler cookies to grocery stores. Dillard's boss wanted him to get a prime display location for their cookies — and told the young salesman to offer a 10-cent-per-case discount to get it.

Dillard had a better idea.

He offered the store manager two New York Mets tickets and ended up with two prime displays for his cookies.

"I was the top salesman for the year," Dillard said, "and that's how I got into selling tickets."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.