The Romanian online gambling market is coming out of the dark after years of legal limbo.
That news comes as the Romanian Government announced the formation of a new National Gambling Office to oversee the regulation of legal gambling both online and at land-based operations.
Online gambling has flourished in the former Communist country but authorities were hard pressed to provide proper regulation until recently.
Not surprisingly, many Romanian gamblers have flocked to offshore sites, depriving the cash-strapped Romanian Government of much-needed tax revenues. (Efforts to block those sites have largely been unsuccessful.)
Under the new plan, a National Gambling Office will be set up to oversee operators and should be up and running within a couple of weeks. Final decisions regarding regulation and licensing will be handled by the Romanian Ministry of Finance.
The good news/bad news for operators is that that even though online gambling sites will be able to operate openly, they’ll still have to jump through some regulatory hoops. Licensed Romanian operators will need to be located in Romania if they wish to serve the Romanian public.
As plenty of UK-based gaming sites have already been serving Romanian players, don’t be too surprised to some of the big name companies looking for Romanian partners.
One of the biggest unanswered questions about the new Romanian plan is exactly how online operators will be taxed. Previous efforts at regulating the Romanian market have stumbled thanks to excessive taxation efforts.
While the Romanian economy has seen its share of ups and downs, the Romanian people have remained reliable customers for online sports betting. The Romanian gambling market has also shown a fair amount of interest in online casino games.
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