Romania: still no self-exclusion scheme as regulator stumbles
While seventeen EU member states have already established nationwide self-exclusion registers for gambling, Romania still falls short of implementing such a programme. The country has recently been shaken by revelations of regulatory failures, followed by a wave of new initiatives aimed at protecting players — including the potential recognition of gambling addiction as a mental disorder.
In February, the National Office for Gambling (ONJN), Romania’s gambling regulator, announced that over 14,000 Romanians had requested to be added to a self-exclusion list. As a response, authorities urged operators to adopt a unified self-exclusion register — meaning that when a player requests to be banned by one operator, they should automatically be excluded from all gambling activities. However, according to the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), this goal has not yet been achieved. The EGBA has described the situation as a severe failure in player protection.
A proper self-exclusion register, , should apply to all licensed operators, both land-based and online, and be based on a single-account principle. It must be tamper-proof, take effect immediately upon registration, and be accessible via a user-friendly website. Player data must be protected under GDPR, and the platform should ideally be government-owned. Moreover, self-exclusion should be part of a broader support system for problem gamblers — including public awareness campaigns and follow-up services such as guidance on seeking help, as well as automatic removal from operators’ marketing lists.
ONJN under scrutiny
In 2024, Regulus Partners published a report estimating the country’s gambling net revenue at €1.1 billion. The firm also projected an annual growth rate of thirteen per cent in the coming years.
The industry, however, has been recently going through a period of instability. The Romanian Court of Auditors has accused the ONJN of costing the country nearly a billion euros in tax revenue between 2019 and 2023 due to regulatory failures. The regulator is primarily accused of failing to verify whether the data provided by operators was accurate and of collecting insufficient taxes.
“Since its establishment, the National Office for Gambling (ONJN) has never monitored or controlled the activity of online gambling operators and has not fulfilled its legal duties, such as analysing data stored by operators or verifying the accuracy of their periodic reports” the Court of Auditors stated in its report.
Politicians have also criticised the self-exclusion system launched by the regulator five years ago, calling it largely inadequate. The system relied on a platform-by-platform exclusion model rather than a unified approach.
Tackling problem gambling
Following these revelations, the USR Party called for gambling regulation to be transferred to the national tax agency.
In addition to a revamped, unified self-exclusion system, there have been calls for broader measures — including a coordinated cap on gambling expenditure, limiting players to spending no more than ten per cent of their monthly income.
In April 2025, a report urging the recognition of problem gambling as a mental health disorder was submitted to the Public Health Commission of the Romanian Senate. Based on this recommendation, a national action plan was also submitted to the government.
