Gambling regulation reviewed in Romania

Introduction

The Romanian gambling sector is undergoing one of its most assertive overhauls since the 2015 framework, with policy and enforcement converging in the final stretch of 2025. A review of gambling regulation in Romania and a reset in regulatory leadership at the National Office for Gambling (ONJN) in April 2025 has been followed by a visibly tougher positioning: repeated blacklist decisions against unlicensed sites, culminating this autumn with the inclusion of crypto-based prediction market Polymarket after a surge of election-driven activity, and public messaging that illegal “counterparty betting” (to be read as exchange betting) will be treated as regulated gambling requiring full authorization. These steps, taken through formal ONJN decisions and communicated alongside a broader program of compliance actions, signal a shift from sporadic takedowns to sustained market-cleansing backed by legal process.

In parallel, the legislative and policy pipeline has accelerated. Law no. 141/2025 introduced mid-year amendments affecting a variety of new obligations for B2B providers, while the audiovisual regulator refined the advertising guardrails in 2025, notably by banning celebrity/influencer endorsements of gambling across TV, radio and social media. At the municipal and parliamentary levels, fresh proposals would push the perimeter further: Bucharest has tabled measures to remove gambling publicity from city-controlled outdoor assets from 1 January 2026, and cross-party initiatives now on the docket would raise the participation age to 21 and curb most daytime online advertising (if it can be somehow accepted that online works according to a linear schedule), aligning rhetoric on public health with enforceable rules. Together, these strands depict a maturing regime that is simultaneously narrowing the space for unauthorized operators and recalibrating exposure to marketing, with compliance expectations rising across B2C and B2B layers alike.

Romanian gambling regulation review part 1: Black market betting and the Polymarket ban

One of the most notable enforcement actions came on October 29, 2025, when Romania’s National Office for Gambling decided to add the Polymarket platform to its blacklist of unauthorized gaming sites. Polymarket is a prominent blockchain-based prediction market that allows users to bet on future events, from elections to sports using cryptocurrency. During Romania’s recent election season, activity on Polymarket surged dramatically as the platform’s trading volumes during the presidential race reportedly exceeded US$600 million in cumulative value. ONJN viewed this as a massive amount of unregulated betting taking place entirely outside the licensed environment.

Beyond its immediate practical effect, the decision sent a broader regulatory message: that Romania’s gambling laws apply based on substance rather than form. The authority’s reasoning reflected a principle it saw as embedded in national practice, namely that wagering on an uncertain future event for monetary gain constitutes gambling, regardless of the medium or token used. In this sense, the ruling drew a clear line between innovation and circumvention: technological sophistication, including blockchain execution or decentralized settlement, cannot exempt operators from compliance with licensing, fiscal, or responsible gambling requirements.

By extending the scope of enforcement to a decentralized, crypto-funded platform with international reach, Romania reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining a level playing field between licensed and unlicensed operators. This approach demonstrates the country’s intent to ensure that innovation in the gambling ecosystem evolves within the parameters of existing law. The move underscored the position that regulatory neutrality toward technology does not imply permissiveness, but rather the consistent application of established legal standards across new and emerging channels of risk. It also stands as an emerging policy benchmark within the European market, where comparable debates on the treatment of “prediction markets” remain ongoing.

According to Polymarket’s own documentation, a prediction market allows participants to buy and sell “shares” in the outcomes of events and thereby collectively forecasts the likelihood of events such as sports results, political elections, or entertainment awards. Polymarket’s design thus merges the mechanics of speculative trading with elements traditionally associated with gambling: a monetary stake, an uncertain outcome, and the expectation of financial gain. The platform’s branding emphasizes prediction and information efficiency, yet its community discussions and social media presence frequently use betting terminology, further blurring the conceptual line between market speculation and wagering.

In the view of the ONJN, this structure satisfies all the elements of a prohibited unlicensed gambling service: there is a stake (users risking money for potential gain), an uncertain future event determining the outcome, a counterparty for the bet, and an operator acting as intermediary for a fee. The fact that the mechanism is implemented via blockchain smart contracts or that outcomes are framed as “markets” does not change its legal nature. – press release from 30 October 2025.

Beyond its regulatory implications, Polymarket has recently drawn significant global attention as one of the most prominent blockchain-based prediction markets. In late 2025, Intercontinental Exchange (the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange) announced an investment of up to US$2 billion in Polymarket, as part of a broader partnership focused on market data and analytics. Around the same time, Google began integrating Polymarket’s real-time probability data into Google Search and Google Finance, effectively bringing event-trading metrics into mainstream financial information tools. These developments have positioned Polymarket at the intersection of financial innovation and regulatory scrutiny, illustrating both commercial appeal and legal ambiguity surrounding decentralized prediction markets.

These developments have further blurred the boundaries between speculative trading and regulated wagering, reinforcing the policy relevance of Romania’s decision to treat such activity as gambling rather than unregulated market innovation. In this broader context, it may also be noted that while the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) now governs much of the crypto ecosystem, it does not extend to platforms like Polymarket, which do not issue or trade crypto-assets themselves but merely allow users to stake cryptocurrency on the outcome of future events. This is a potential gap that underscores the current regulatory ambiguity surrounding such models.

Rationale for the blacklisting: The Romanian authorities’ decision to blacklist Polymarket marked a shift from conceptual debate to concrete enforcement, reflecting a deliberate application of national gambling law to an emerging, technology-based wagering format.

Under Romanian law, games of chance are regulated by Government Emergency Ordinance No. 77/2009, which establishes the general framework for organizing and operating gambling activities in Romania. The Ordinance defines in Article 3, a game of chance as an activity involving, via a public offering, the payment of a participation fee, the possibility of obtaining a monetary gain, and the determination of the outcome by a random or uncertain event, with the activity being carried out under the authority and supervision of the state. Only entities holding a Class I license and a specific authorization issued by ONJN may legally offer such activities.

Analysed within this legal framework, Polymarket’s operational model (which enables users to place value, in fiat or cryptocurrency, on the outcomes of future contingent events) appears to meet the cumulative legal criteria for gambling as established under Romanian law. The platform facilitates peer-to-peer wagering, processes the underlying transactions, and derives revenue through commissions. Each of the essential elements of a gambling activity may be considered present: a stake (the user’s contribution of value in expectation of gain), a future uncertain event determining the result, a counterparty taking the opposite position, and the operator’s intermediation of the process.

Polymarket’s status in other jurisdictions: Romania is not the first to clamp down on Polymarket. In fact, Polymarket had already come under regulatory fire in the United States. In 2022 the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigated Polymarket for offering event-based binary options (a form of derivative) without registration. The case settled with Polymarket paying a US$1.4 million fine and agreeing to block U.S. users from its platform. Likewise, several other countries have taken a hard line. Authorities in Belgium, France, and Poland have taken regulatory measures to restrict access to Polymarket, citing concerns that its activities constitute unlicensed gambling or illicit speculative trading. These European precedents reinforced the ONJN’s reasoning that the platform’s classification could not be exempted from gambling law merely because it operates through cryptocurrency or presents itself as a “prediction market.”

Even as Romania moved to block Polymarket for facilitating unlicensed gambling, the platform has sought to reposition itself in the United States under a regulated framework, signalling a broader global tension between jurisdictions that treat prediction markets as financial innovation and those, like Romania, that classify them squarely as games of chance.

Romanian gambling regulation review part 2: Tightening restrictions on gambling advertising

In tandem with curbs on illicit gambling operations, Romania is also moving towards tightening the rules on gambling advertising, reflecting rising societal concern about the visibility of betting in public spaces and media. In October 2025, a group of parliamentarians from the governing coalition introduced a draft law that would ban all outdoor advertising for gambling products. The proposal seeks to amend Romania’s Advertising Law (Law no. 148/2000) to insert a simple but sweeping provision: “Gambling advertising in open public spaces (street advertising) is prohibited”.

If enacted, this measure would prohibit any form of billboards, posters, signage, or banners promoting gambling activities, including casinos and betting, in any outdoor location accessible to the public. The restriction applies to advertising “in exterior spaces, outside buildings,” which corresponds to the legal definition of public street advertising under Romanian law.

According to the bill’s initiators, Romania is facing an “aggressive and omnipresent” wave of gambling advertising, with detrimental effects on vulnerable populations. In their view, the measure is grounded in a public-health rationale: pervasive gambling marketing normalizes betting and may encourage individuals, particularly minors and those prone to addiction, to engage in high-risk behavior.

By banning gambling ads in the public sphere, the law aims to protect vulnerable citizens from unwanted exposure to addictive messages, reduce the prevalence of gambling addiction and its negative socio-economic effects, and align national legislation with European trends in protecting public health and preventing addictive behaviors. In essence, the initiative frames gambling advertising as a public health matter akin to tobacco or alcohol, an influence to be pushed out of everyday environments for the greater good. The bill’s initiators also noted that many European countries are moving in a similar direction.

If enacted, besides fines, regulators may also order the removal of illegal advertisements, mandate corrective public notices, or publish the names of offending entities. While the fines may appear modest in financial terms (ranging from RON 1,500 to RON 4,000 – approximately EUR 300 to EUR 800), the resulting reputational damage and compliance scrutiny for major operators could carry far greater consequences.

It is worth noting that this is not the first attempt to reform gambling advertising laws in Romania. A comprehensive draft bill in 2023 originally sought to prohibit all forms of gambling advertising in all media. However, lawmakers later withdrew that provision during Senate debates, considering it too restrictive and potentially harmful to the licensed gambling sector and to state tax revenues.

Instead, a more moderate set of advertising restrictions was adopted. Those rules, effective mid-2023, imposed a limit on outdoor billboard size to the maximum size of 35 m²)

Furthermore, since October 2025, it is illegal in Romania for any public personality (whether a sports star, artist, or social media influencer) to appear in gambling advertising on television, radio or via social media. This rule was introduced by the National Audiovisual Council as part of the new Audiovisual Code (Decision no. 573/2025) and has forced operators to terminate or rework endorsement deals with well-known brand ambassadors. For context, the Romanian market in recent years has been saturated with celebrity-endorsed gambling campaigns, as many licensed operators entered into commercial contracts with local public figures to promote their brands. That practice has now come to an abrupt end on several media channels.

From a social perspective, the tightening of advertising rules would appear to reflect growing public unease with the normalization of gambling in everyday life. By restricting visibility across streets, media, and social platforms, Romania seems intent on reducing the constant exposure that can desensitize younger audiences and fuel addiction risks. Whether these restrictions will meaningfully curb such exposure or merely shift it to digital spaces remains an open question.

Outlook and reflections

The final months of 2025 saw a gambling regulation review in Romania characterized by assertive regulatory interventions. On one front, the government and ONJN are cracking down on the supply side of illicit gambling, exemplified by the high-profile blacklisting of Polymarket and efforts to block unlicensed websites and their facilitators. On another front, lawmakers are targeting the demand side stimulants, placing new limits on how and where gambling can be promoted to the public. Both strategies face a common challenge: how to effectively enforce rules in the digital age without driving players to the shadow market or infringing legitimate business.

Andrei Cosma is a Partner and Adela Nuță a Managing Associate at Baciu Partners.

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