Online Gambling Launch Debated In Romania

Although online gambling was made legal in Romania in December 2010, delays due to the lack of a monitoring third party meant that no legal online gambling could happen in the country for several years after the legislation had passed. 2013 came with another ray of sunshine on the matter but the regulations remain less than ideal.

Now, a new legislative proposal has been submitted and is currently under debate. The decision is expected to be made soon after the Presidential elections are complete in November this year and early responses indicate a positive look on legalizing online gambling and licensing operators in Romania.

Three Classes of Licenses

According to the proposal, there will be three different classes for the licenses operators will need to offer remote gambling in the country. The first one is for remote gambling operators and will have fees based on the turnover registered from Romanian customers. The second class is mostly for legal persons that work in the remote gambling field and the third type of license is mostly aimed at the local operator that offers remote lottery, the Romanian Lottery.

While the duration of a license is now set for 5 years, the proposal is looking into expanding it to 10 years and the taxes and fees for player revenues are also being considered.

Potential Revenue for Romania

Players from Romania can now very easily access most of the online gambling options provided by reliable operators, and this includes casino games, poker, sports betting and bingo. However, since the government does not locally regulate the industry, the country is missing out on the revenue that would result from the license fees.

There are no licenses for online gambling issued in the country so far and the current form of the law proposal aims to change that in the near future. If online gambling is legalized in Romania, players will have a safer gaming environment available on the internet.