Romania faces 80% gambling venue wipeout as local licensing deadlock deepens

Romania could lose around 80% of its authorised slot machines and gambling venues by the end of 2026 unless local authorities resolve a licensing impasse, the Federation of Romanian Gambling Organisers (FEDBET) has warned.

On Monday, the federation said delays in decisions required under Emergency Government Ordinance (GEO) No. 7/2026 are leaving operators without a clear route to renew their permits. It estimated that the number of authorized slot machines will fall from 43,306 in March to about 9,000 at the beginning of 2027.

On 1 November, 15,579 machines remained authorised. Without new local decisions, FEDBET expects that number to decline to 9,096 by 1 January, a fall of 42% in two months.

Calls to introduce temporary rules

The ordinance gave local authorities a role in granting gambling permissions. According to FEDBET, city halls cannot issue local permits without decisions from their councils, while Romania’s National Office for Gambling (ONJN) cannot renew operating licences in their absence.

FEDBET said fewer than 4% of the country’s approximately 3,100 administrative-territorial units had adopted the required decisions by the end of the 60-day deadline in April. The federation also says requests to local authorities have gone unanswered.

It is calling on the Government and Parliament to introduce temporary rules allowing operators that meet existing legal requirements to continue operating until local councils make their decisions.

Earlier this year, the local council of Timișoara unanimously voted to prohibit the authorisation of any new gambling halls across the city. Existing facilities will only be permitted to operate until their current licences expire, with closures expected by next year. 

Concerns over unlicensed gambling

FEDBET argued that the licensing blockage will not remove demand for gambling, but could push some activity towards unlicensed operators. Such operators may not apply age checks, deposit limits or other safeguards, the federation said.

“Closing an authorized location does not mean that people stop playing. A large part of them end up on unlicensed sites, where no one checks age, there are no deposit limits or protective measures, and the state does not collect anything,” said Alexandru Domșa, FEDBET’s president.

“The first thing that is lost in a lockdown is the protection of players. In other words, the game does not disappear, control, on the other hand, does.”

Around 8,500 jobs affected

The licensing delays are also affecting employment and public finances, FEDBET said. It estimated that about 8,500 jobs have been affected so far and that losses could reach approximately 320 million lei by the end of the year.

The Ministry of Finance had included a shortfall of 750 million lei in gambling tax revenues in its 2026 budget-amendment project. 

The federation said the ministry’s estimate reflected receipts from the early part of the year, before large numbers of permits begin to expire. 

“The Ministry of Finance’s figure only shows what was lost before the authorisations began to expire en masse,” Domșa said. “The real cost will be seen in the coming months and does not stop at the taxes specific to this field: each job eliminated means contributions and taxes that the state no longer collects.”

Domșa said the industry was not seeking tax concessions, but wanted “the exit from uncertainty” through transitional rules allowing eligible operators to remain open until local decisions are adopted.

Written in the stars

In 2024, the Romanian government moved to ban slot halls in towns that had fewer than 15,000 residents and introduced stringent zoning and advertising rules. 

Over the past two years, the number of slot machines in the country has more than halved, dropping from 80,000 to 36,000. 

A source at a major Romanian operator, who preferred to remain anonymous, told iGB back in March that he believed this could drop to just 20,000 or 15,000 by the end of the year. 

“And this is the optimistic scenario,” he added.  

According to FEDBET, the number is a stones throw away from 15,000 with two full calendar months left of the year.