New detection tool sparks surge in the blacklisting of unlicensed gambling sites in Romania
The Romanian gambling regulator has added 800 more domains to its igaming blacklist.
Romania.- The Romanian gambling regulator ONJN has announced the addition of around 800 unlicensed gambling websites to its national blacklist. The Supervisory Committee’s latest round of blocking orders represents an escalation of enforcement action under the new mandate that began last year.
The latest update is the largest single enforcement action to date, more than doubling the previous record of around 370 domains. It also means that the administration has added more sites in the past year than over the previous 12. According to ONJN, some 1,500 illegal sites were blacklisted between the regulator’s creation in 2013 and April 2025. Since the current mandate began, 1,180 domains have been added, including sites such as the controversial prediction market platform Polymarket, which has been blocked in various European jurisdictions in the past year.
The blacklist functions as the official register of domains barred from offering gambling services in Romania. Each entry is approved by the Supervisory Committee and published on the Office’s website, accompanied by annexes listing the affected addresses.
One of the reasons for the surge in the number of blocking orders is the implementation of a new detection tool designed to identify clone sites that replicate the same root structure of other unlicensed sites and reappear under different domain addresses within days of being blocked. This pattern has long undermined domain‑level enforcement, allowing operators to resurface almost instantly, but the ONJN believes its new detection tech is helping to make a dent in the practice.
ONJN president Vlad‑Cristian Soare acknowledged that an enforcement gap remains. He suggested that this is a problem across Europe, but that the Romanian regulator’s limited resources make automated detection tools essential in its case.
Soare highlighted recent legal amendments that empower ONJN to order the removal of illegal content. Romania also now has a public registry and geolocation system for gaming devices, with QR codes on machines providing registry data when scanned. Funding has been allocated for the development of new monitoring tools with the Romanian Digitalisation Authority.
“The black market is a systemic problem at the European level. Over 70 per cent of the European online gambling market comprises operators active on the black market,” he said.
He added: “Today’s results show that the regulator is exercising its authority, strengthening its supervisory capacity and taking important steps in the transition from a reactive approach to one based on technology, data and rapid intervention”.
Meanwhile, physical gaming machine approvals in Romania have plummeted after local authorities were given the power to ban venues within their jurisdictions.
