Romania Lays Path To Settle Gambling Ad Reforms By Early 2026
At the close of 2025, the Senate of Romania authorised a series of legislative proposals to permit advertising reforms to be evaluated by the Chamber of Deputies and associate committees.
The choice was authorised to enable Parliament to decide on new advertising rules/legislation by early 2026. A fractious issue in which the Senate has gotten wide variety proposals from multiple celebrations.
Among the essential procedures under conversation are the prohibition of street-level gaming advertising, stricter time-based constraints on online and broadcast promotions, and the positioning of betting marketing requirements with more comprehensive consumer-protection and digital-media laws.
The Chamber of Deputies will handle considerations, with disputes anticipated to resume when the next parliamentary sessions open in February. The reforms are considered as the first phase of a larger overhaul of Romania's Law on Games of Chance, a regulative framework that has come under mounting examination following a series of prominent governance failures in 2025.
Proposed procedures consist of raising the nationwide gambling age from 18 to 21, submitted by the Liberal Party under a legal mandate titled "Protecting the Age of Innocence."
Elsewhere, coalition member Save Romania Union (USR) has endorsed an extensive package of changes requiring a restriction on untargeted marketing and sports sponsorships, along with restrictions on online gaming promos between 06:00 and 00:00.
The USR continues to advocate for the total overhaul of the sector, including the taking apart of ONJN, the National Gambling Office of Romania, following what it refers to as "systemic governance and auditing failures that have lost all rely on the regulator".
Additional proposals focus on introducing local-authority approvals for gambling licences and harmonising the nationwide self-exclusion system throughout online and land-based locations, an instruction that ONJN intends to complete by the very first half of 2026.
The ONJN preserves its position as Romania's central regulatory authority for betting. Recently, President Vlad Soare published a program and open letter detailing ONJN's essential for 2026, prioritising the increased enforcement of existing laws and the modernisation of core regulative systems.
Soare highlighted that the regulator had actually made noteworthy progress in enhancing openness and responsibility in 2025 but yielded that it remains uncertain whether such measures would ease political anxieties around gambling oversight.
Acknowledging the ongoing analysis, Soare restated his assistance for a comprehensive reform of Romania's betting legislation, urging policymakers to work together on a "coherent and efficient structure" to replace what he described as "a morally outdated Gambling Law."
2026: Turning point
Cosmina Simion -WH Simion & Partners
Legal observers agree that the months ahead will be pivotal in forming Romania's long-lasting gaming policy. There is growing agreement that 2026 might mark a turning point in the modernisation of the market.
However the government requires to decide on its regulatory principals/priorities as betting licences require a sense of stability and sustainability that has actually been neglected due to continuous modifications given that 2018.
Talking about the advancements, Cosmina Simion, Managing Partner at WH Simion & Partners, stated: "Romania is getting in a stage of regulative debt consolidation in the betting sector, including in relation to advertising rules. The Senate's decision on street and public advertising reflects a wider effort to strengthen the legal structure and introduce more steps concentrated on player security.