Olympic ticket buyers asked to hand over gold

An Olympic-sized dent in sports fans' bank accounts will be created from today as payment is taken for tickets for the 2012 Games in London.

Applicants will know whether they have been successful when their accounts are debited over the next four weeks. Consumer groups said the process would cause anxiety for many of the 1.8 million applicants, who have to guard against the entire cost of their ticket request being debited at once.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) "categorically" denied reports that some bank accounts had been debited prematurely over the weekend. Money was due to start being collected from 10 May, but Locog later announced the process would be delayed until today.

London 2012 needs to raise £500m from the sale of tickets, but the system has been accused of favouring richer fans who can afford to make large block-bookings. Locog said the average order was for 12 tickets totalling £500.

A subsequent sale of surplus tickets is expected to take place later this year.