Romania’s ONJN Schedules Consultative Council Meeting to Tackle Gambling Regulation Failures and Legislative Gaps
Romania’s ONJN will hold a Consultative Council meeting on November 18, 2026, to address gambling regulation failures after a damning state audit.Summary
Romania’s National Office for Gambling (ONJN) has scheduled a Consultative Council meeting for November 18, 2026, to begin overhauling the country’s gambling legislative framework. The talks will focus on addiction treatment, self-exclusion systems, illegal online gambling and licence monitoring, aiming to resolve inconsistent and outdated provisions in existing laws. The move follows a Court of Accounts audit covering 2019 to 2023 that identified regulatory liabilities estimated at between €630m and €900m, with auditors flagging shortcomings in licence supervision, tax verification, fee collection and reconciliation of operator data with tax declarations. Valentin-Ioan Tomescu, appointed ONJN president in August, launched the legislative working group after his predecessor’s dismissal; the authority has also faced corruption investigations involving former senior officials. Tomescu named digitalisation, staffing and addiction treatment as immediate priorities. The November session will examine proposals for a national gambling addiction treatment programme and the legislative changes needed to support it, along with consistent application of self-exclusion measures, action against unlicensed online gambling and improved recording of player transactions at land-based venues. ONJN also intends to consult on future rules for online gambling, fixed-odds betting and retail operations. Several municipalities have begun phasing out land-based gaming under new local powers, prompting Super Technologies to convert affected venues into community centres, while industry stakeholders seek clearer regulatory interpretations after recent legislative shifts. SCCG Management advises operators to prepare input on player-protection rules that will likely raise compliance costs but reduce long-term regulatory exposure in a tightening Romanian market.
(Source：Sccg Management)