Welcome

Welcome to my blog. Here you’ll find a little bit about me, why I have a blog and other assorted crap.

My name is Rob Crawford, married with two stepchildren and as from 1 April 2007 officially earning a living through sports betting and trading. Prior to 2007, I had worked for 7 years providing ratings to a syndicate betting on Hong Kong horse racing. During that time I became aware of betting exchanges and Betfair, and over the last few years have had a bit of fun sports betting in my spare time.

Fun has now become an income and while I’m not the world’s (or NZ’s) biggest sports better I gamble enough and win often enough to be able to put food on the table and have a roof over my head. I both bet in the conventional sense, and “trade” (betting exchanges allow you – if you don’t live in Australia! - to place bets during a sporting event right up to its conclusion, allowing you to take advantage of fluctuating prices much like a short-term stock trader does), with my main choice of poison being cricket, and I also dabble in rugby union and tennis.

So that gives you a rough idea of how I spend my waking hours. It involves countless hours in front of a computer screen on the internet and with the TV boring the rest of the household with some sports event on. A solitary existence in many respects (but working for yourself from home lying on the couch has its advantages) which introduces some of the reasons for having this blog.

It’s really a pathetic attempt to somehow communicate with the rest of the world. Actually it’s a place where I can put up my thoughts on whatever I choose, although obviously its sport and betting dominated. But not always. When something pisses me off there is some therapeutic value in banging away on the keyboard. It’s better than kicking the cat.

So have a look around, and read some of the archives. If you’re offended by strong language, piss off because there is a bit. Some of the categories might need a bit of explaining – in a former life I used to be fit and quite good at a sport called Orienteering, so sometimes it gets a mention on here and my current spare-time activity is getting better at Poker. And my favourite subject to rant off at is SPARC – short for Sport and Recreation New Zealand who is supposed to be providing leadership for sport in NZ, and in my humble opinion are not doing a very good job. Having spent close to 7 years as President of the NZ Orienteering Federation, I believe I’m allowed to publicly air my concerns about the direction they’re taking NZ sport, even if it is not of much interest to my 4 regular readers.

So I hope you enjoy, and come back and visit. I generally post most days Monday to Friday, except during busy times for me (like the recent Cricket World Cup). If you’re here for betting tips, I generally provide my thoughts on cricket and rugby union prior to contests, although sometimes for obvious reasons I may choose not to do so. And if you’re stupid enough to bet on another person’s opinion, don’t blame me if you lose your shirt.

Finally if I have one wish for this blog, it’s for people to start leaving comments. As I said, it’s one avenue for me to ensure I don’t become a social outcast so please drop me a line from time to time, even abusive ones are welcomed (as I can talk trash with the best of them) - I will generally reply depending on workload.

Ciao for now.

P.S. Oh yeah, linking policy. I don’t have one. If you think this blog is worth the bandwidth it wastes, feel free to link to it, but don’t ask for one in return. The links I have are sites I use, read and/or admire and I’m not into exchanging links just for the hell of it.