In a unanimous decision, the Timișoara local council has moved to ban the authorization of new gambling halls throughout the city. Mayor Dominic Fritz announced the policy change on Tuesday, revealing that existing venues will be allowed to operate only until their current licenses expire, which is expected to result in their closure by next year.
“This decision is now official: gambling halls can no longer be authorised in Timișoara,” Mayor Fritz stated on Facebook. He emphasized that this complete ban was reached with full consensus among council members.
Notably, lottery services managed by Romania’s National Lottery are exempt from this ban and will continue operations as the only gambling-related activity permitted in the city.
Currently, there are 173 authorized gambling venues in Timișoara, as reported earlier this spring. These facilities will gradually shut down as their central licenses, governed from Bucharest, expire, with an estimated timeline for closure by 2027.
Local authorities will play a crucial role in future gambling decisions. In April, the president of the Timis County Council indicated that funds saved from the oversight of gambling halls would likely be redirected to enhance educational infrastructure, including modernizations for schools and kindergartens.
This action aligns with a recent shift by the Romanian government, which has transferred gambling licensing responsibilities to local authorities. With this new power, councils have the ability to veto new gambling establishments and can even choose to prohibit gambling entirely.
In 2024, the Romanian government enacted laws to ban slot halls in towns with populations under 15,000 and instituted stricter zoning and advertising regulations. As a result, the number of slot machines in the country has drastically decreased, plummeting from 80,000 to 36,000.
By 2025, the value of brick-and-mortar gaming in Romania was around €1.67 billion annually, making up about a third of the total gambling market, according to data from H2 Gambling Capital.
