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There has been a host of licence cancellations in Romania following the introduction of new financial guarantee requirements at the start of the year, as the country continues to ramp up pressure on the gambling industry.
Total Bet Online, Cash Slot VIP, Professional Double N Games, Maxwin Slots, Zone Sport Club and Raltex-Conti are among the companies that have lost a slot machine or online licence since the new financial guarantees required for the risk of non-payment of fiscal obligations towards the state budget were introduced on January 1, 2025.
The guarantees required are €3m for land-based casino operators, €1m for all other land-based gambling operators, regardless of their income level, €5m for online casino operators, regardless of their income level, and €2m for all other online gambling operators.
Cosmina Simion, managing partner at WH Simion & Partners, told Vixio GamblingCompliance this means the guarantee can rise to €7m for online operators if they are active in both the betting and online casino verticals.
“The smaller operators are withdrawing — [the] market remains competitive for the more established onsets, whether incumbents or newcomers. Despite the tax surge, we do see interest for new licences,” she said.
Law firm Baciu Partners listed the guarantees as the “most significant factor which may impact the market” in a recent Legal 500 Q&A, similarly predicting that it may “create a blocker for accessing the market”.
A similar wave of licence cancellations occurred last year, after a restrictive emergency ordinance including prohibiting B2B suppliers from providing games to unlicensed operators, and a ban on slot machine halls in towns with fewer than 15,000 people was adopted on April 9, 2024.
Slot restrictions were widely supported and hailed by lawmakers, with Alfred Simonis, acting president of the Chamber of Deputies, predicting they would result in the closure of 90 percent of localities' gaming halls.
Romania is already one of the most comprehensively regulated gambling markets in the European Union, with a strong land-based and online gambling industry.
However, more restrictions on the industry are planned and still widely supported by lawmakers.
Most recently, on February 4, a draft law amending the Gambling Act was submitted to parliament. This law will ban gambling establishments on the ground floor of residential buildings and in other locations.
