Romania has appointed Valentin-Ioan Tomescu as the new president of the National Office for Gambling (ONJN), replacing Vlad-Cristian Soare, who had led the regulator since April 2025.
The change was formalised through Prime Ministerial Decisions 283/2026 and 284/2026, published on August 21, 2026. Neither decision gives a public reason for Soare’s removal.
The leadership change comes as Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) continues an investigation involving ONJN officials. On July 29, DNA prosecutors searched the regulator’s headquarters. Soare said the case involved four officials from its control and licensing divisions.
Tomescu rises from ONJN’s enforcement side
Tomescu is an internal appointment. Before taking the top position, he headed ONJN’s South-East Territorial Service in Constanța and later worked within the regulator’s General Directorate for Supervision and Control.
According to figures published by Soare, ONJN added around 1,300 illegal gambling websites to its blacklist, carried out approximately 11,000 control actions, issued around 10 million lei in fines and revoked more than 70 licences during his tenure.
The regulator also continued work on self-exclusion and gambling-harm prevention programmes.
Soare questions his dismissal
Following his removal, Soare said he had not been given an explanation for the decision. In a LinkedIn post, he said his administration had changed the leadership of several directorates, launched internal investigations and referred suspected wrongdoing to law-enforcement authorities.
The available material does not indicate that Soare himself is implicated in the corruption investigation. The DNA case predates Tomescu’s appointment and remains separate from the leadership change.
ONJN faces continued reform pressure
Tomescu takes over the regulator while it remains under scrutiny over previous compliance failures, an ongoing anti-corruption investigation and the need to continue reforms across Romania’s gambling market.
Key challenges include further development of self-exclusion, enforcement against illegal operators and continued digitalisation of gambling oversight.
Source: European Gaming
