SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Romania will adopt a new comprehensive self-exclusion programme designed by the reforms of the Save Romania Union (USR) Party.
On Tuesday, the USR Party claimed its ‘first victory’ in its mission to overhaul the governance of Romanian gambling, in the aftermath of auditing scandals embattling the National Gambling Office (ONJN).
The bill, authored by USR deputy Diana Stoica, was cleared by the Senate’s Legal Committee on the grounds of being a general consumer protection and addiction prevention measure. The Bill is set to be debated in full on 10 June.
“The voice of tens of thousands of addicts has been heard,” said Stoica.
“The state must stop complicity with the gambling industry and intervene firmly. We cannot treat addiction with bureaucratic indifference.”
Romania will introduce a mandatory online self-exclusion register, hosted on the ONJN website, alongside strict processing deadlines: operators must act within 24 hours, and the ONJN must update its database within 48 hours.
Crucially, the bill includes a provision for a six-month licence suspension for operators who fail to comply, a tougher framework sought by lawmakers to protect Romanian consumers. Key measures include:
- Online self-exclusion through the ONJN portal
- Mandatory processing times: one day for operators, two days for ONJN
- 48-hour refund requirement for excluded players who are allowed to bet
- Minimum 12-month “cooling-off” period for indefinite self-exclusion
- Public reporting on processed exclusions
- Mandatory signposting to addiction support services
The bill requires ONJN to publish exclusion request statistics which represents a move toward increased transparency for an industry that has faced criticism for being unclear.
The USR reform package includes this legislative initiative as part of its broader scope. The USR party supports a second bill that proposes to establish a strict spending cap for gambling which would cap player expenditures at 10% of their reported monthly earnings.
The proposal faces postponement because Romania conducted presidential elections recently. President Nicușor Dan who won the election on 18 May has not named any senior officials or defined his regulatory approach. The absence of executive appointments has caused a delay in the parliamentary assessment of USR’s affordability bill.
Scrutiny now turns to the ONJN that has begun a new leadership tenure of president Vlad-Cristian Soare. Tasked with restoring credibility to the regulator, Soare has pledged to end political interference and prioritise consumer safeguards and market integrity.
The self-exclusion bill now moves toward Senate approval which reform advocates see as essential for Romania to achieve European standards in gambling oversight. The USR views the bill’s passage as evidence that systemic change is starting to advance after multiple years of regulatory inertia.
