Is Romania the Next Poker Boom

Romania is sort of untapped market in the online gambling world. In the 90's, when Romania became a democratic country, gambling was brought back inside the borders. Up until 2010 gambling in Romania was legal, but citizens were only allowed to play on sites licensed by the Romanian government. The one catch was that there was no organization to hand out those licenses. For almost 3 years, sites were offering online gambling to Romanians without a license, and technically illegal according to Romanian law. But again, with no one to enforce this law, nothing was done. It wasn't until 2013 that a regulatory bod was formed and licenses began flowing. Yet again, there were still some hiccups. The European Union questioned Romania's model and changes were made to their system. This included a stipulation that anyone with a Romanian license must be located within its borders which was removed and now allows anyone to file for a license. Jump to 2016, and we are seeing a trend that is happening fast. Within the last couple weeks, we have seen major software providers either obtaining a Romanian gambling license, or partner with an already licensed outfit. MicroGaming being the largest of the players, has now obtained a class II license from Romania's Gambling Regulators. They plan to offer their Prima Network of poker rooms inside the country for the first time. This also means online casinos can partner with MicroGaming to offer their huge selection of casino games. Another casino software provider - iSoftBet has also obtained the same Romanian license. Their first partner will be Netbet.ro to offer a small selection of their games. Possibly a testing the waters phase before going all out. Very few poker rooms operate in Romania. Poker Stars, and Bet365 were among the largest. But Bet365 has since had their license removed. Prior to 2015, taxes were as high as 25% on these poker rooms, making it a less than desirable market to enter. This tax law has changed drastically and is much more favorable to the casino owners which has caused this influx of licenses being obtained. Being close to Russia, which is already experiencing a poker room, Romania looks poised to have their own boom. With bigger and better brands offering games in the country, this could mean not just more places to play online, but live as well. Since many of these sites offer satellites to live events, Romanian live poker rooms could use this to their advantage and start offer bigger and better tournaments. The WSOP, and other large poker tours could also see the expansion of Romanian poker and begin to make the country a stop on their tour.