Romanian gambling regulator gets to the bottom of massive tax irregularities
The ONJN thinks it has discovered the reason for the gaps in gaming taxation uncovered in an audit of the regulator.
Romania. The National Office for Gambling (ONJN) has confirmed the existence of significant irregularities in tax payments among certain operators. The recognition follows the publication of a damning audit of the Romanian gambling regulator a year ago, which led to changes in leadership.
The Court of Accounts (CCR), which oversees public funds in Romania, accused the ONJN of failing to detect tax liabilities estimated between RON 3.3bn and RON 4.3bn (€650–€760). The regulator now believes it has identified how the gaps arose.
In a statement signed by ONJN President Vlad-Cristian Soare, the authority confirmed that it has been investigating “serious indications” of tax discrepancies. According to Soare, investigators suspect a manipulation of gross gaming revenue (GGR) reporting by some operators. Although he mentioned no names, the ONJN said it had flagged accounts showing unusually frequent and identical winnings in short timeframes.
“The pattern is obvious: numerous wins, concentrated on the same day or the same month, in almost identical amounts and of very high values, which raises serious suspicions regarding the way in which the GGR is reported and calculated,” Soare said.
Examples cited include a player recording 84 wins worth RON 10m in a short span. Another had 60 wins in a single month totalling RON 7m while a third had 33 wins worth RON 4.8m, 31 of them in a single day.
Such cases led to discrepancies of tens of millions of lei in reported versus actual tax payments, particularly in 2024, the ONJN said. It highlighted the examples of a remote gaming operator with a RON 5m gap and a slot-machine operator with a RON 18m gap.
Soare assumed leadership of the ONJN in April 2025, two months after the CCR’s rebuke. He’s made tackling taxation concerns a priority. He has replaced the former heads of the Control and Monitoring Directorates. The regulator has also noted that it didn’t previously have full access to servers and mandatory tax reports.
“When I took office on 25 April 2025, ONJN did not have real access to the mirror servers of the remote gambling organisers,” Soare said.
Meanwhile, Romanian lawmakers and local politicians are eyeing tighter restrictions for gambling. A recent proposal aims to raise the legal gambling age from 18 to 21, while a growing number of local mayors are pushing to halt new gambling venues in their areas.
Soare has rejected calls to ban gambling altogether warning that “you cannot prohibit human behaviour.” “Prohibition moves the phenomenon to the black market, where the state no longer has any control,” he said.
