REGULATORY REFORM IN ROMANIA
that while the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) now governs much of the crypto ecosystem, it does not extend to platforms like Polymarket, which do not issue or trade crypto-assets themselves but merely allow users to stake cryptocurrency on the outcome of future events. This is a potential gap that underscores the current regulatory ambiguity surrounding such models. Rationale for the blacklisting: The Romanian authorities’ decision to blacklist Polymarket marked a shift from conceptual debate to concrete enforcement, reflecting a deliberate application of national gambling law to an emerging, technology-based wagering format. Under Romanian law, games of chance are regulated by Government Emergency Ordinance No. 77/2009, which establishes the general framework for organizing and operating gambling activities in Romania. The Ordinance defines in Article 3, a game of chance as an activity involving, via a public offering, the payment of a participation fee, the possibility of obtaining a monetary gain, and the determination of the outcome by a random or uncertain event, with the activity being carried out under the authority and supervision of the state. Only entities holding a Class I license and a specific authorization issued by ONJN may legally offer such activities. Analysed within this legal framework, Polymarket’s operational model (which enables users to place value, in fiat or cryptocurrency, on the outcomes of future contingent events) appears to meet the cumulative legal criteria for gambling as established under Romanian law. The platform facilitates peer-to-peer wagering, processes the underlying transactions, and derives revenue through commissions. Each of the essential elements of a gambling activity may be considered present: a stake (the user’s contribution of value in expectation of gain), a future uncertain event determining the result, a counterparty taking the opposite position, and the operator’s intermediation of the process. Polymarket’s status in other jurisdictions: Romania is not the first to clamp down on Polymarket. In fact, Polymarket had already come under regulatory fire in the United States. In 2022, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigated Polymarket for offering event-based binary options (a form of derivative) without registration. The
case settled with Polymarket paying a US$1.4 million fine and agreeing to block U.S. users from its platform. Likewise, several other countries have taken a hard line. Authorities in Belgium, France, and Poland have taken regulatory measures to restrict access to Polymarket, citing concerns that its activities constitute unlicensed gambling or illicit speculative trading. These European precedents reinforced the ONJN’s reasoning that the platform’s classification could not be exempted from gambling law merely because it operates through cryptocurrency or presents itself as a “prediction market.” Even as Romania moved to block Polymarket for facilitating unlicensed gambling, the platform has sought to reposition itself in the United States under a regulated framework, signaling a broader global tension between jurisdictions that treat prediction markets as financial innovation and those, like Romania, that classify them squarely as games of chance. Tightening restrictions on gambling advertising In tandem with curbs on illicit gambling operations, Romania is also moving towards tightening the rules on gambling advertising, reflecting rising societal concern about the visibility of betting in public spaces and media. In October 2025, a group of parliamentarians from the governing coalition introduced a draft law that would ban all outdoor advertising for gambling products. The proposal seeks to amend Romania’s Advertising Law (Law no. 148/2000) to insert a simple but sweeping provision: “Gambling advertising in open public spaces (street advertising) is prohibited.” If enacted, this measure would prohibit any form of billboards, posters, signage, or banners promoting gambling activities, including casinos and betting, in any outdoor location accessible to the public. The restriction applies to advertising “in exterior spaces, outside buildings,” which corresponds to the legal definition of public street advertising under Romanian law. According to the bill’s initiators, Romania is facing an “aggressive and omnipresent” wave of gambling advertising, with detrimental effects on vulnerable populations. In their view, the measure is grounded in a public-health rationale: pervasive gambling marketing normalizes betting and may
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IMGL MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2025
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