The Professional Poker Player: Career Identification and the Problem of Respectability

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Abstract
This study examines how the career-professional poker player, one type in a deviant occupational group, adapts to outside labeling and stereotyping. Career-pros exhibit strong occupational identification, and consequently place great importance on the appearance of respectability. Career identification is discussed in terms of three factors: (1) the interest in professional skills; (2) ideological and moral concerns; and (3) the reliance on group support. The presentation of respectability, a denial of inaccurate stereotypes, is a defensive mode of adaptation for those in marginal occupations. I collected data over a two year period from the poker players in the cardrooms of Gardena, California.