Letting the right ones in: Whitelists, jurisdictional reputation, and the racial dynamics of online gambling regulation

Abstract

Using a case study of a recent UK whitelist intended to regulate online gambling, I examine the affective politics of listing. I pay particular attention to the racial dynamics of black and white listing. By charting how the gambling whitelist worked and failed to work as a tool in the designation of jurisdictional reputation, I argue that the use and subsequent abandonment of the whitelist shows the centrality of racial dynamics to listing practices. This is particularly evident in relation to how the list was deployed in debates about the trustworthiness of the Kahnawá:ke territory and Antigua and Barbuda. In the final section I explore the racialised affective practices forged after the demise of the online gambling whitelist. Although non-listing techniques of governance look to be expanding, in the form of increased surveillance of individual players, lists continue to play a key role in the UK government’s new model of gambling regulation. I suggest that this confirms the continuing importance of black and white lists as techniques of governance, and the value of exploring them and their racialised implications together.