Vlad-Cristian Soare has been abruptly dismissed from his role as President of ONJN, the Gambling Office of Romania.
His dismissal comes just over a year after he took over an organisation plagued by high-profile fallouts that has seen the organisation’s existence come under political scrutiny.
In a post shared on LinkedIn, Soare expressed that no reasons have been given to him as to why he was dismissed by PM Ilie Bolojan, who has now appointed Valentin-Ioan Tomescu as his successor.
“It was the greatest honor to represent the Romanian state as a dignitary and I thank God that I was able to live this experience. I love Romania and, even if I am disappointed because my change was not made based on the principle of meritocracy, I will not stop believing in our ability to do good,” Soare said in his statement.
His dismissal comes shortly after a series of corruption probes into two high-profile ONJN personas. The more recent one is an investigation into Ana-Maria Badea, now-former Deputy Director General of the ONJN, who is suspected of repeated bribery offences.
Earlier in June, Odeta Kristanela Nestor, former ONJN President between 2013 and 2017, was also taken into custody regarding possible corrupt activities.
It is also worth noting that Badea was the Deputy Director General under ex-ONJN President Gheorghe, who was pressured to resign after an audit found close to €1bn (£855m) in missing taxes in 2025. Soare was his successor.
The LinkedIn post further reads: “If anyone still wonders whose side I was on: also during my mandate, the institution began to clean itself from the inside. We changed the leadership of the directorates, we ordered internal investigations and notified the criminal investigation bodies whenever we had clues.
“This year’s Anti-Corruption Directorate investigation at the ONJN is a consequence of serious violations that are not compatible with the direction I wanted.
“I’m a technocrat. The results show who we defended: the Romanian state, the market balance and the people that gambling costs.”
Soare moves the needle on core ONJN strategies
During his term, Soare delivered on key initiatives to stabilise Romania’s gambling sector and tighten responsible gambling policies.
Under his leadership, Romania joined a number of other European countries in banning prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi. A further 1,300 illegal gambling websites were blocked.
Consolidation of the market saw the number of licensed gambling companies cut in half, from 200 to less than 100 since his term as ONJN President.
His commitment to governing transparency and accountability was noted just recently by the Court of Auditors, the same body that uncovered the €1bn tax hole.
Soare’s most important work revolved around the modernisation of Romania’s self-exclusion strategy – something that has been lacking behind the standards set across the rest of Europe.
His team coordinated the development of a fully digital self-exclusion scheme, and called for an immediate fast track of amendments to the national self-exclusion framework to fix current liabilities that exclude online gambling operators from being enrolled in the scheme.
The first round of around €5m in grants was also negotiated between the ONJN and the wider government to fund various social projects that deal with problem gambling through the ‘Conscious and Free’ initiative.
