Limited studies have been conducted on the effects of reading motivation on recreational reading with a self-determination theory perspective. Thus, the present study aims to explore the motivational profiles of Turkish pre-service English teachers for recreational reading in English and the relationship between amount of reading, gender, grade, and their motivational profiles. The sample group of the study consisted of 224 English Language Teaching students of a Turkish state university. The data were collected through a 33-item Reading Motivation Scale adapted from Self-Regulation and Academic Learning Motivation scales used previously in selfdetermination theory-based research. The findings of the descriptive and correlational analyses demonstrated that pre-service teachers of English have relatively high levels of motivation for recreational reading in English and that their intrinsic motivation is higher than their extrinsic motivation. The results indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between the amount of reading and their amotivation levels whereas there existed a significant positive correlation between the amount of reading and intrinsic motivation. In addition, no significant difference was found between female and male participants in terms of their motivational profiles for recreational reading English.