Ministers in Romania have been urged to back new regulations that will impose a limit on gambling expenditure to 10% of a player’s monthly income.

The proposal headlines a package of draft measures proposed by the Save Romania Union (USR), which deems that “new accountability is needed to govern gambling” due to the damaging fallout of the National Office for Gambling of Romania (ONJN).

USR will submit a bill to Parliament, demanding new oversight of gambling licences, to be monitored by the National Bank and the Tax Authority (ANAF).

The new regulations propose capping gambling expenditure for both online and retail accounts at 10% of a customer’s monthly income. It remains unknown whether USR seeks to impose this restriction as a permanent or temporary measure, as ONJN is facing a parliamentary investigation due to “severe regulatory negligence.”

This protection will require Romanian licence holders to report real-time customer spending data to ANAF for retail expenditures and to the National Bank to monitor online gambling spending.

USR criticised government authorities for failing to recognise Romania’s exposure to the financial threats of gambling, stating that “1 million active gamblers exceed their income through gambling.”

The bill will further propose that Romania establish a new, simplified self-exclusion scheme, replacing the system currently used by ONJN.

The proposal for a new self-exclusion scheme will require customer registration to be active across the websites and venues of Romanian gambling licence holders, ensuring that real-time self-exclusion requests can be processed.

Due to ONJN’s negligence, the government has been urged to conduct a review of self-exclusion liabilities. The review must guarantee that self-excluded individuals who were allowed to gamble will be refunded by Romanian licence holders.

USR deputy Adrian Giurgiu said: “ONJN is either incapable or complicit in the harms of gambling. The solution is to limit how much addicts can play. In Romania, gambling expenditures surpass the budgets of key ministries, making the fight unequal. With nearly 1 million active players, many risk becoming the next tragedy.”

The governance of Romania’s gambling sector has come under scrutiny following a damning audit of ONJN, conducted by the Court of Accounts (CCR).

The leadership of ONJN has been called to Parliament to explain the auditing failures regarding licences and authorisation fees for the period 2019-2023.

The CCR’s audit claims to have identified potential tax liabilities of between 3.3 billion and 4.3 billion lei (€630m to €900m) due to ONJN’s severe negligence in reporting and supervising licences.

ONJN cited that irregularities were due to the use of outdated analogue IT systems for filing tax forms, stating that tax collection has never been a statutory duty of its agency.

The bill will be presented to Parliament by USR Senator Sebastian Cernic, who stated that ministers must decide “whether to protect citizens or favour the gambling industry”.

“Hundreds of thousands of addicts spend their last money on gambling. Some, on the verge of despair, end up taking their own lives. Gambling addiction is a disease and must be treated as such.”

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