Being told "professional poker doesn't contribute to society."

[samurai_tony]

Pro players dont really provide a service in the sense they wouldn't be hugely missed by society in general but that could be applied to a lot of things, personally it would make very little impact on my life if say baseball was suddenly removed from the earth, but that seems a somewhat spurious arguement.

There is a small trickle down effect in the sense that nowdays the presence of professional players attracts people to the game which provides employment for dealers, casino staff in general, tv producers and tv show staff etc etc. Society wouldnt collapse if poker wasnt around and the contribution to society that poker players have isnt of the same level as doctors or policemen or something like that, they arent key workers but they have a place.

I think it also depends what type of professional player, someone like hellumuth, brunson or negreanu definatly contributes to society through more than just playing poker but we would probably not have heard of these peopel who, love or hate them, have probably enriched a lot of peoples lives if it werent for poker. However your typical pro grinding it out at the 400 nl game on party is what i think the OP was referring to. In fairness i cant actually think of a single thing they do contribute to society as a whole.
The answer i think you should give is that they dont contribute to society but that they dont have to, most people contribute VERY little to society in general and their motives are almost certainly not altruistic, they are doing it for the money and would rather sit at home for a couple of hours taking a few $ off some drunk guy at 2/4 nl but they dont have the ability to.