Virtual Workers and the Global Labour Market pp 95-116 | Cite as
It‘s on the Cards: Emerging Employment Relationships in Online Poker
Abstract
Holts and Surugiu describe an emerging form of work among online gamblers and show how it is challenging conventional categories of employment and self-employment. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with professional online poker players in Romania who are involved in staking—an arrangement whereby a player is provided with money in exchange for a share of the winnings. In order to investigate how staking fits into existing typologies of employment, the authors examine how the work of staked players is organised, the extent to which the players are able to exercise autonomy and control in carrying out their work, contractual relationships, and how staked players are recruited and rewarded.
Keywords
Gross Domestic Product Gambling Activity Online Platform Online Gambling Experienced PlayerReferences
- Ball, K. (2002). Categorizing the workers: Electronic surveillance and social ordering in call centres. In D. Lyon (Ed.), Surveillance as social sorting: Privacy, risk and automated discrimination (pp. 201–225). London and New York: Routledge. Google Scholar
- Beck, U., & Camiller, P. (2000). The brave new world of work. Malden: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
- Callaghan, G., & Thompson, P. (2001). Edwards revisited: Technical control and call centres. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 22(1), 13–37.Google Scholar
- Caraway, B. (2010). Online labour markets: An inquiry into oDesk providers. Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 4(2), 111–125.Google Scholar
- Casale, G. (2011). The employment relationship: A comparative overview. Oxford: Hart Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
- Cassidy, R., Pisac, A., & Loussouarn, C. (2013). Qualitative research in gambling: Exploring the production and consumption of risk. Oxon and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Chen, B., & Ankenman, J. (2006). The mathematics of poker. Pittsburgh: ConJelCo LLC.Google Scholar
- Chen, M. A. (2005). Rethinking the informal economy: Linkages with the formal economy and the formal regulatory environment: DESA Working Paper No. 46. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.Google Scholar
- Collins, H., Ewing, K., & McColgan, A. (2012). Labour law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Coman, R. (2014). Media construction of national identity. Stereotypes and negative narratives. Language and literature European landmarks of identity. Piteşti: University of Piteşti Press.Google Scholar
- Countouris, N. (2007). The changing law of the employment relationship: Comparative analyses in the European context. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.Google Scholar
- Davidov, G., & Langille, B. (2006). Introduction: Goals and means in the regulation of work. In G. Davidov & B. Langille (Eds.), Boundaries and frontiers of labour law: Goals and means in the regulation of work (pp. 1–10). Portland: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
- DeDonno, M. A., & Detterman, D. K. (2008). Poker is a skill. Gaming Law Review, 12(1), 31–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Farnsworth, J., & Austrin, T. (2010). The ethnography of new media worlds? Following the case of global poker. New Media & Society, 12(7), 1120–1136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Fiedler, I., & Wilcke, A.-C. (2011). The market for online poker. Available at SSRN 1747646.Google Scholar
- Fiedler, I. C., & Rock, J.-P. (2009). Quantifying skill in games—Theory and empirical evidence for poker. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 13(1), 50–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Freedland, M. (2005). The personal employment contract. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Freedland, M. R., & Kountouris, N. (2011). The legal construction of personal work relations. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Griffiths, M. (2004). Betting your life on it: Problem gambling has clear health related consequences. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 329(7474), 1055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Griffiths, M., & Barnes, A. (2008). Internet gambling: An online empirical study among student gamblers. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 6(2), 194–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hayano, D. M. (1977). The professional poker player: Career identification and the problem of respectability. Social Problems, 24(5), 556–564.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hayano, D. M. (1982). Poker faces: The life and work of professional card players. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.Google Scholar
- Hodgson, D. E. (2004). Project work: The legacy of bureaucratic control in the post-bureaucratic organization. Organization, 11(1), 81–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Hodgson, G. M. (2014). Conceptualizing capitalism. Institutions, evolution, future. Hatfield, UK: Hertfordshire Business School.Google Scholar
- Huws, U. (2002). Unsichere Freiheit—Freiberufliche Telearbeit, Autonomie und Geschlechterrollen in Europa. In G. Winker (Ed.), Telearbeit und Lebensqualität. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag.Google Scholar
- Huws, U. (2014). Labor in the global digital economy. The cybertariat comes of age. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
- INS (2014). România în cifre. București: Institutul Național de Statistică.Google Scholar
- Jouhki, J. (2011). Writing against culture with online poker. In P. Raento (Ed.), Forum: The value of gambling and its research (pp. 76–91). Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society.Google Scholar
- Kahn-Freund, O., Davies, P. L., & Freedland, M. R. (1983). Kahn-Freund’s labour and the law: London: Stevens.Google Scholar
- Kalleberg, A. L. (2000). Nonstandard employment relations: Part-time, temporary and contract work. Annual Review of Sociology, 26(1), 341–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Lee, H.-P., Chae, P. K., Lee, H.-S., et al. (2007). The five-factor gambling motivation model. Psychiatry Research, 150(1), 21–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Marchington, M. (2005). Fragmenting work: Blurring organizational boundaries and disordering hierarchies. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- McCormack, A., & Griffiths, M. D. (2012). What differentiates professional poker players from recreational poker players? A qualitative interview study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 10(2), 243–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Panduru, F., Molnar, M., & Poenaru, M. (2009). Venituri, inegalitate, sărăcie. In M. Preda (Ed.), Riscuri și inegalități sociale în România: Raportul Comisiei Prezidențiale pentru Analiza Riscurilor Sociale și Demografice (pp. 19–42). Iași: Polirom.Google Scholar
- Parker, S. C. (2004). The economics of self-employment and entrepreneurship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Precupețu, I. (2013). Inequality trends in Romania. Calitatea vieții, XXIV(3), 249–276.Google Scholar
- Ranade, S., Bailey, S., & Harvey, A. (2006). A literature review and survey of statistical sources on remote gambling. London: RSe Consulting.Google Scholar
- Ridder-Wiskerke, M., & Aggleton, P. (2015). Lifestyle, work of easy money? Male sex work in The Netherlands today. In P. Aggleton & R. Parker (Eds.), Men who sell sex: Global perspectives (p. 15). New York and Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
- Sankaran, K. (2006). Protecting the worker in the informal economy: The role of labour law. In G. Davidov & B. Langille (Eds.), Boundaries and frontiers of labour law: Goals and means in the regulation of work (pp. 205–220). Portland: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
- Schuck, R. I. (2010). The rhetorical lines on TV’s poker face: Rhetorical constructions of poker as sport. American Behavioral Scientist, May 3, 2010.Google Scholar
- Sennett, R. (2011). The corrosion of character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
- Spanier, D. (2006). Easy money: Inside the gambler’s mind. Harpenden: High Stakes Publishing.Google Scholar
- Sproston, K., Erens, B., & Orford, J. (2000). Gambling behaviour in Britain: Results from the British gambling prevalence survey. National Centre for Social Research London.Google Scholar
- Stone, K. V. (2004). From widgets to digits: Employment regulation for the changing workplace. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Theron, J. (2003). Employment is not what it used to be. Indus. LJ 24.Google Scholar
- Thompson, P. (2003). Fantasy island: A labour process critique of the ‘age of surveillance’. Surveillance & Society 1(2).Google Scholar
- Thompson, P. B., & McHugh, D. (2009). Work organisations: A critical approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
- Turner, N. E. (2008). Viewpoint: Poker is an acquired skill. Gaming Law Review and Economics, 12(3), 229–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Wardle, H., Moody, A., Spence, S., et al. (2011). British gambling prevalence survey 2010. National Centre for Social Research.Google Scholar
- Wardle, H., Sproston, K., Orford, J., et al. (2007). British gambling prevalence survey 2007. National Centre for Social Research.Google Scholar
- Winters, K. C., Stinchfield, R. D., Botzet, A., et al. (2005). Pathways of youth gambling problem severity. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 19(1), 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Wood, R. T., & Williams, R. J. (2011). A comparative profile of the Internet gambler: Demographic characteristics, game-play patterns, and problem gambling status. New Media & Society, 13(7), 1123–1141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar