/ Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 01 August 2011 /

Betting.betfair's cricket tipster and Betting Writer Of The Year 2011 Ed Hawkins has written a book about his gambling experiences Down Under during the 2007 Ashes Tour and life on the road as a one-man walking wager. Here's what we made of it.

Ed Hawkins is one of Betting.betfair's longest-serving writers. It's not by chance that as others have come and gone, he has always remained the voice of cricket betting on the site. He shows a consistent profit year after year courtesy of a sharp betting mind gained through years of punting and endless hours of extensive research into batting averages, pitch conditions and toss biases. He's as good an example as you'll get of hard work paying off in the form of betting profit. Number-crunchers and value-finders are out there if you look hard enough and you'll each have your own favourites but Ed can entertain me, make me laugh and wish I could write like him as well as make me money throughout the year. That's why I was far from surprised when he deservedly won the Betting Writer Of The Year award back in March.

A few weeks ago he sent me a copy of his book Sporting Chancer. I didn't know much about it beforehand other than it was about betting, involved him going out to Australia to watch the 2007 Ashes series and chancing his hand at different types of gambling. All been done before? Perhaps, but this is by far the most entertaining book of this genre I've read. It's a hilarious solo journey of a somewhat withdrawn and dry-humoured Englishman trying to come to terms with the Australian psyche, out-of-control English cricket fans and the unique characteristics of the different places he visits whilst doing his best to reach his pre-trip target of betting winnings.

You'll learn a fair bit about gambling if you're not that into it and you'll be able to relate to a lot of if you are. The principles, the rules, the reasons for doing it, the emotions.

But beyond the betting, the disastrous whitewash at the hands of the Aussies and the very British wit, there's an honest and insightful look at Australia. Ed goes in search of what the different cities are about beyond the watering holes and the Test grounds and finds a country full of beauty, sun, fun, some far less appealing contrasts and one with a very dark and dangerous gambling problem.

There are highs and there are plenty of lows. A rash Kevin Pietersen shot costs him a load of money he can't afford to lose, he resorts to selling his digital camera in Melbourne to keep the trip going and, when returning to real life, suffers tour withdrawal symptoms amidst unemployment and the cold and gloom of London. Back on the road, he befriends a heroin addict in New Orleans, whose life was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and watches roosters tear each other apart in an illegal fight as punters clamour to get a bet on. Worst of all, perhaps, he struggles to keep up with the caller at a bingo hall in Scotland that defied the odds by producing two millionaires in the space of a couple of weeks.

This is a superb book and as ever with Ed, I'm anything but surprised.

You can buy a copy of Sporting Chancer through Amazon.

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