Sporting Chancer by Ed Hawkins

56 in stock

203mm x 126mm x 15mm

Pages: 224

Ed Hawkins grew up around gambling. Instead of going to school, he followed his father, a horseracing journalist, around the courses of the UK. The frantic betting ring was his maths class and the press box, thick with the fug of cigarette smoke and expletives, his English lesson. While dad filed copy late on in to the night from some obscure racing outpost, the young Hawkins trawled the empty bookmaker pitches, searching for the errant fiver. From an early age he learnt that bookies never gave anything away. So when he found himself out of work after taking a misguided gamble on his career, he took by deciding to wager his way around the globe. Initially gambling his way across Australia meeting triumph and disaster - selling possessions when cash got tight in Melbourne after a disastrous night in one of the largest casinos in the world - with witty self-deprecation, Hawkins returns home relatively unscathed. However, the life of the Ordinary Joe soon has him twitching for the road again. Setting himself three challenges to see if he can get that life-changing win, the fun never runs out - unlike the funds. He embarrasses himself playing poker with Hollywoods finest at the World Series in Las Vegas, challenges world champion Phil Taylor to a game of darts, wastes dollars on rooster fighting with Britney Spears babysitter in Louisiana and fleeces pensioners on planes. Hawkins tries anything to stay afloat, culminating in a trip to a Glasgow bingo hall to try to land the odds that stare back at him in the mirror after being diagnosed with a rare illness.