The Romanian National Gambling Office has kick-started the compliance process in Romania by awarding Class 2 licences to two certification and auditing bodies, NMi and GLI.
This development, along with the release of "Ordinul nr.93/2016" on April 27, which officially defines the scope of the certification and audit, now allows licensees in Romania to start the process immediately.
This is an important step forward as several operators, and consequently a larger number of their suppliers, require these compliance activities to be completed by the end of June, when their temporary right to operate expires.
The majority of temporary permits expire in July and August.
The Romanian gambling market is set to become one of the most dynamic and lucrative in Eastern Europe. With around 70,000 slot machines, 5,000 betting shops and several casinos already operating, and well-known gaming brands opening development offices in the country to take advantage of the upwardly mobile, technically competent workforce, consumer demand for online gaming in the country has never been higher.
The newly adopted legislation has already seen positive results for the state budget, due to the implementation of tighter controls of the land based market; thousands of illegal slot machines have been removed making licences even more attractive to investors. With new legislation now in place for both online and landbased gaming, and with their Class 2 licence secured, NMi are able to provide certification and auditing services to interested operators and are perfectly positioned to service the Romanian and Eastern European markets.
Andrew Rosewarne, director of NMi's gaming division: "We are delighted to have received our formal approval as a lab in Romania. Entry into this market has not been without its challenges; the NGO made a decision that they only want mature companies on a strong financial footing providing certification services in Romania and the level of scrutiny has been high... The awarding of Class 2 licences in Romania is the culmination of a lengthy and time-consuming process for NMi's regulatory team, but the experience of achieving approval in more than 25 i-gaming jurisdictions has stood us in good stead. We are of course grateful to the ONJN for their openness and for the clarity of their communications to allow us to get to this point.”
With 40 years of experience in gaming, NMi provides independent auditing and testing of gaming equipment and software, and information security auditing to customers across the world, with offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands.
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