Covid-19 delays Romanian gambling industry by five years. According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the pandemic has set back the Romanian gambling industry by five years.
The Romanian gambling operators experienced one of the most severe declines of the last 30 years between March and May in 2020. The local gambling and entertainment industry declined by about 24% in March 2020 compared to the same period of 2015. The gambling sector’s March turnover was only 57 % of February’s. Then, in April and May, gambling businesses reported close to zero revenue.
Attila “Otto” Török, strategy director at Game World Romania, said “Given the situation, we made the necessary business continuity decisions and decided that the safety of our customers and employees was our main priority. We focused on the long-term business principles and we organized our activity so that we would be able to adapt as quickly as possible to the multitude of changes that occurred during this period.
For example, over the past three months we went from ‘closed until further notice’ to being open round the clock and then back to limited opening hours (until 11 PM, later extended to midnight), and we hope to be able to return to our non-stop hours as soon as possible. During all this time, we’ve been focusing on communicating with our clients and employees, for whom we’ve taken extra health and safety measures. Maintaining communication with professional associations and the authorities for accurate information on the latest developments concerning gambling halls was equally important,” Torok added.
According to the latest data provided by the National Gambling Office (ONJN), the 250 active gambling operators contribute about EUR 600 million to the state budget every year.
[image: Sebastian Dumitru]
