Romania’s Timișoara Council becomes the latest to prohibit new gaming venue approvals
The western city will issue no new licences for land-based gaming venues.
Romania.- Timișoara Council has voted unanimously to prohibit gambling halls across the city. Mayor Dominic Fritz has confirmed that under the new rules, no fresh authorisations will be issued for gaming venues. Existing venues will be allowed to continue operating only until the expiration of their current licences issued by Romania’s national gambling regulator, the ONJN, in Bucharest.
The move, reflecting that of several other local authorities in Romania, means that gaming halls in Timișoara will close one by one, with all licences to expire by 2027. From that point, the only gambling activities permitted in the western Romanian city will be lottery services operated by the country’s National Lottery.
“From today, it is official, slot machine halls can no longer be authorised in Timișoara,” Fritz wrote on Facebook. “The Local Council approved the decision through which we are completely banning gambling halls in the city.”
He added: The fact that today I could decide what happens with the pagan halls in Timișoara is thanks to my USR parliamentary colleagues. They have been fighting for years to get this decision to the local authorities.”
Earlier this year, some 173 locations in Timișoara held gambling authorisations, Digi24 reports. It’s the latest locality to take advantage of the new powers granted local authorities new powers to regulate gaming halls in Romania under National Emergency Ordinance 7/2026, adopted in February,
Last month, The county of Iași became the first to have entirely banned gaming halls. Meanwhile, there have been suggestions that while the prohibitions are still in a minority the issue has had a cooling effect on new slot machine approvals.
According to the Romanian business news site Profit.ro, 2,337 slot-machine stations were authorised between February and May 2026, compared with 18,981 during the same period a year earlier. In 2025, Romania had 45,659 authorised gaming devices. That number has reportedly now fallen to 29,014, representing roughly 64 per cent of last year’s total.
Meanwhile, there’s been an abrupt change at the helm of the ONJN. Valentin-Ioan Tomescu has been named as the new president of the Romanian gambling regulator, replacing Vlad-Cristian Soare, who has been removed from his position just over a year after taking charge.
