Key Takeaways:
Romania ONJN blocked over 300 unlawful playing websites and revoked 60 licenses in its 2025-2026 mandate 12 months. €5M Conștient și Liber fund marks Romania’s first state funding for playing dependancy therapy Romanian courtroom rejected Polymarket’s suspension request on April 1, preserving ONJN blacklist intact.
Romania’s Playing Regulator Shares Block Listing
The Oficiul Național pentru Jocuri de Noroc (ONJN) printed its exercise report on April 24, summarising 12 months of enforcement and reform. The figures level to a reorientation towards black market enforcement. ONJN inspectors carried out roughly 11,000 management actions, issued fines totaling 10 million lei (about $2.2 million), revoked 60 operator licenses, and filed 70 prison complaints. The regulator additionally issued greater than 60 orders for the elimination of unlawful on-line content material, with a reported 98% compliance price, and added 300+ unlicensed web sites to its nationwide blocking listing.
“This 12 months has proven that change is feasible. It doesn’t come simply and isn’t performed with out resistance. There have been blockages, opposition and makes an attempt to decelerate important initiatives, each from inside and outdoors,” Soare mentioned within the report’s accompanying assertion, confirming that ongoing investigations would proceed.
A key structural change underpinning the enforcement push is the general public register of gaming units, launched by the ONJN in October 2025. The cloud-native system hyperlinks every registered slot machine and video lottery terminal to a singular QR code, with necessary geolocation monitoring. The regulator has described it as the primary of its variety amongst EU regulators. The laws additionally expanded the company’s authority to concern takedown orders for unlawful playing content material beneath the EU Digital Companies Act framework.
The ONJN inherited roughly 30,000 unprocessed self-exclusion requests when Soare took workplace; the report says the registry now covers roughly 54,000 people. A draft emergency ordinance at the moment with Romania’s Ministry of Finance would unify the self-exclusion process throughout land-based and on-line operators, introduce a compulsory cool-off interval, with penalties of as much as 100,000 lei for non-compliance.
Probably the most concrete coverage shift got here on April 17, when ONJN opened functions for its Conștient și Liber (Conscious and Free) program. The €5 million fund marks the primary time the Romanian state has immediately financed playing dependancy prevention and therapy. Purposes shut Might 11, with implementation operating August by December 2026.
The exercise report follows Soare’s April 1 announcement of a Bucharest courtroom ruling that rejected Polymarket’s request to droop ONJN’s blacklist choice. “The choice to incorporate Polymarket on the blacklist just isn’t about expertise, however concerning the regulation. Whether or not you wager in lei or in crypto, for those who wager cash on a future consequence beneath counterparty situations, we’re speaking about playing that have to be licensed,” Soare mentioned on the time. “ONJN won’t allow blockchain to be became a display for unlawful betting.”
Romania individually joined the Balkan Gaming Federation in March, a regional trade physique coordinating coverage throughout Western Balkans markets with out supplanting nationwide regulators.
The Conștient și Liber program, system register rollout, and unified self-exclusion invoice stay in early implementation phases. ONJN’s report acknowledged that a number of reforms nonetheless depend upon legislative or budgetary follow-through.
