Hustling techniques extend beyond illegality to ordinary social aims

Evidence

Despite the implications of the above passage, the game of hustling does not always involve illegality. It is a game indulged in for a whole array of probable and improbable purposes: One of Bertha’s favorite strategies [to gain access to potential converts for the millenarian sect of which she was a member] was to patronize coffee shops and snack bars and to feign the appearance of the single girl lingering long over her coffee. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 985