While it is legal to play gambling games in Romania, you will need to use their currency to do so. From an international perspective, there isn’t much value in using leu to bet online. However, for Romanians, you can find a good number of RON online casinos on our page. Let us introduce you to a few of them below…
Officially, “leu” stands for “lion” and comes from old Dutch leeuwendaalder that used to find themselves circulating in the country, alongside Moldova and Bulgaria. Naturally, all these countries now have a currency that sounds similar – leu in Romanian, lev in Bulgarian and Ieu in Moldovan.
Romanian is a part of the European Union, so at some point, Romania is supposed to adopt the euro. However, like Sweden and several other countries that are “supposed” to make the change, Romania doesn’t yet fulfil the criteria (arguably deliberately). This change now won’t go ahead until 2027-2028 at the earliest. In the meantime, then, if you want to bet in Romania, you’re going to need to obtain leu.
Romania does permit its citizens to have a crack at online gambling. Like most countries, the industry is regulated and licensed, and there are rules operators must abide by. Loteria Romana runs the monopoly in the country, but outside operators can obtain a license issued by ONJN (National Gambling Office) if they meet some requirements.
For instance, they must offer the Romanian leu as a currency and provide support and assistance to an adequate degree. Although any casinos that don’t have an ONJN license are technically forbidden, Romania doesn’t go out of its way to block access to these casinos.