Romanian Licensing Delays Set to Cut Authorized Slot Machines to Under 10,000 by January 2027

Romania’s licensed gambling sector stands at risk of sharp contraction in its land-based slot machine estate as permit renewals stall. The Federation of Romanian Gambling Organisers (FEDBET) attributes the bottleneck to Emergency Government Ordinance No. 7/2026, which requires local authority approvals before the National Office for Gambling (ONJN) can proceed with licence renewals.

As of November 1, 2026, 15,579 machines held licences. Without administrative action from local councils, that number is forecast to fall to 9,096 by January 1, 2027. FEDBET projects the authorised estate could ultimately decline from 43,306 machines recorded in March to roughly 9,000 at the start of next year. The organisation reports that fewer than 4 per cent of the country’s approximately 3,100 administrative-territorial units met the April deadline for required measures.

Licensing Reforms and Local Authority Inaction

The dispute turns on new powers granted to municipalities to approve or restrict slot venues. Many city halls have yet to pass formal council decisions, leaving ONJN unable to renew operating licences for compliant operators. Requests for clarification from local authorities have gone largely unanswered, according to FEDBET. Several municipalities have already exercised these powers to ban new gaming halls, with Timișoara, Bucharest’s Zone Six and the entire Iași county among the most prominent examples. The central government previously barred venues in rural towns of under 15,000 residents in a 2024 order.

FEDBET has documented roughly 8,500 jobs already affected. It estimates the combined economic impact could reach RON 320 million (€59.8 million) by year-end. The Ministry of Finance separately projects a RON 750 million shortfall in gambling tax revenues for 2026. FEDBET president Alexandru Domșa stated that the ministry figure reflects only earlier losses and that “the real cost will be seen in the coming months and does not stop at the taxes specific to this field: each job eliminated means contributions and taxes that the state no longer collects.”

The Risk of Unregulated Migration

Domșa warned that closures of authorised venues will not eliminate demand. “Closing an authorised location does not mean that people stop playing. A large part of them end up on unlicensed sites, where no one checks age, there are no deposit limits or protective measures, and the state does not collect anything,” he said. He added that “the first thing that is lost in a lockdown is the protection of players. In other words, the game does not disappear, control, on the other hand, does.”

The federation urges temporary transitional provisions that would permit operators already meeting legal standards to continue trading while councils complete their processes. Without such measures, the regulated retail market faces accelerated contraction and the very real prospect of players migrating to unlicensed operators. This outcome would undermine both player safeguards and government revenue streams at a time when the sector has already seen machine numbers fall from around 80,000 to approximately 36,000 over the past two years, as reported by Focus Gaming News.