Don’t miss out on your chance of getting tickets for the 2012 London Olympics – applications for the public ballot close at midnight tonight.

Inside Croydon offered its own guide to what sports events to apply for (click here), with suggestions about the various free-to-access events during the 2012 Games.

The Londonist site has done some last-minute online research to check out which events are most likely to be in greatest demand (and therefore offer you less of a chance to be successful in your application).

Remember, there are 6.6 million tickets available across all the Olympic events, which means that even if they were distributed evenly, there would hardly be enough for one ticket for every Londoner. So if you want to at least be part of the Greatest Show On Earth, it is probably not a good idea to pin all your hopes on getting a set of four seats together for the night of the men’s 100 metres final.

But you’ll need to move as fast as Usain Bolt now if you’re to get any tickets at all.

Our last piece of advice is: try to make sure you get to see at least one event being staged in the Olympic Park itself. Of course, football at Hampden Park, archery at Lord’s or tennis at Wimbledon will all be fantastic experiences and offer top-class sport. But for 16 days in July and August next year, the centre of the universe will be the Olympic Park in Stratford (less than an hour by train from East Croydon). And you’ll want to make sure that you are part of it, even for just one day.

And before you make your application, read this guide from another London blog, and make sure you note all the advice about payment:

• you must use a credit card that expires after May 2011;
• you can only apply once, so make sure you plan it well;
• and make sure that you keep your payment account topped up with cash throughout next month, because if you are successful, you don’t want to miss out because you just happen to go over your overdraft limit on the day that Seb Coe comes along to take his cash.

Make sure you read the whole of the guide (it is quite long), in particular the illustrations of the acceptance/rejection letters that might be sent out to you next month (look for the pink 2012 logo on the right-hand side of the screen). It’s great advice, and quite funny, too.

• #thatissocroydon Olympic irony spot: London 2012 issued a set of pin badges representing every borough in the capital. Croydon’s badge is illustrated with an image of the Clock Tower, where the arts centre, museum and David Lean Cinema were all shut down last week.