We are approaching the end of an extremely dynamic year for the Association of Gambling Organizers ROMBET: a 2018 where we tried to set ourselves in the middle of the dialogues from the industry, between operators and authorities, between industry and players, with solutions, advice and strategic guidance. In fact, the role of ROMBET is starting to transform, with the maturing of the industry, into a strategic dialogue platform, where our experience and expertise is creating bridges between problems and solutions, and the thorough knowledge of the industry brings people and their common interests much closer.
At internal level, ROMBET has generates series of events built on the pattern of the direct meetings between the members of the management of the Association and operators, producers, importers and representatives from the business area of the gambling in several cities in the country. Thus, in 2018, the Association organized the second series of events of this kind, between 24-26 October, in Oradea, Cluj-Napoca and Brașov.
On a preset content structure, Mr. Anchidim Zăgrean, Mr. Dan Iliovici and Mr. Bogdan Coman, have approached themes of interest and have debated together with the audience the most important subjects at the moment in the gambling industry from Romania.
Mr. Zăgrean, vice-president ROMBET, came, like always, with a technical, detailed and applied perspective on the”Legislative news of interest for the gambling industry” with theoretical and practical aspects.
A subject the participants showed great interest was “The special regime of fiscal obligations, on whose payment depends the maintenance of the license of organization or of the authorization of exploitation of the gambling”, Mr. Zăgrean detailing the procedural stages of the applications for the staggering of the contributions to the state budget.
Another important episode for the participants to the seminars was that of “Establishing the optional regime of the interim distribution of dividends”, the ROMBET vice-president detailing both the obligations, as well as potential penalties applied for the non-compliance with these.
A theme with applicability from January 1st 2019, is that of the awarding of the value tickets, contained in the Law nr.165 from 2018. Mr. Zăgrean showed that this normative act is regulating the modality of awarding of the value tickets to the employees as food coupons, gift coupons, nursery coupons, cultural coupons and holiday coupons, and are to be issued only by the Ministry of Finances. Mr. Anchidim Zăgrean completed these very interactive discussions with details and discussions about other laws, such as Law nr.203 from 2018 – regarding the measures of streamlining the payment of the fines, or Law no. 212 from 2018, for the amendment and completion of the law of administrative contentious.
Mr. Bogdan Coman, executive manager ROMBET, held a detailed presentation on the matter of online gaming, covering a broad theme, from definition, to the minimum capital for an investment in this field. For the audience it proved very interesting the route from idea to the business itself, in the stages described by Mr. Coman, who approached including the technological aspect – perhaps the most important! – of this type of business from the gambling industry. A subject that drew the attention was that of the obtainment of the license for online gaming, where the operator must produce evidence for the fulfillment of a rather complex list of conditions, to which there add the technological criteria and aspects, those related to security and operation itself. An important part of the presentation was the subject of choosing a provider of professional services for hosting the operational server for such a business (if the operator doesn’t have its own means), where Mr. Coman showed that almost all large telecom operators from Romania are licensed and authorized to do it. As a “conclusion” there was approached the subject of the taxes, both those necessary for the establishment and licensing, as well as those due periodically to the state, once the business was established.
”We believe that these seminars are reinforcing the cohesion of the industry and we hope that the ROMBET team is doing what is right”, says Dan Iliovici, vice-president of the Association. ”Year after year, we meet operators, producers, businessmen more and more informed and more careful to what is happening in the industry. We like to believe that we have also contributed to this educational process, to a certain extent. Having a well informed business community is a major desire of our association.
The ROMBET is having directly with the representatives of the gambling industry from the country is a plus of experience for everyone. Then, we could not say that we are getting involved in the problems of the industry, without constantly organizing these events. They are very important for us, but especially for the community of businessmen from the country”, concluded Mr. Iliovici.
In the spirit of the same approach we have built the calendar of our foreign presence, an agenda which started, traditionally, with ICE Totally Gaming 2018 at London, where we were the witnesses of several premieres. One of them, particularly remarked, was the numerous presence of the payment processing companies, a very clear sign that the gambling universe is expanding in the online area. Then, the presence of Chinese companies, which seem to build a real power pole B2B in the gambling industry also.
The series of foreign events continues with Prague Gaming Summit, where the executive manager ROMBET, Bogdan Coman, moderated the panel dedicated to the gambling industry from Poland, a country that registers, starting with last year, improvements of the business climate in gambling. ”One of the greatest problems on the market of traditional betting from Poland remains the 12% tax on cash collected, the so-called IN.” noticed Mr. Coman within the event.
Prague was also the host of EGR Online Gambling Briefing – Central and Eastern Europe 2018, an event which we attended and where the reference mark was the very interesting round table related to the current situation from Austria with regard to gambling, followed by a very interesting panel related to how can operators grow their business by a better customization of the services.
Dan Iliovici, vice-president ROMBET, moderated in Budapest a debate on responsible gambling at Central and Eastern European Gaming Conference and Awards, in September. As partner of CEEGC 2018, ROMBET transmitted to the participants the most recent information regarding the gambling market from Romania, emphasizing the new dynamic generated by the legislation and by the orientation towards online.
Betting on Sports Week, the most important European event of the gambling industry of the fall 2018, was also marked in the ROMBET agenda, by the presence of Mr. Bogdan Coman, executive manager of the Association. Over 250 opinion leaders, innovators and decision makers from fields like sports bets, esports, casinos, affiliates, media and sport got together at London, in the famous Olympia hall.
Other important events which ROMBET attended were European Gaming Congress, la Ljubljana; WrB London – Responsible Gambling, CSR and The Bottom Line – in London; Eastern European Gaming Summit, in Bulgaria and the Annual Conference of the organization GambleAware, in London.
”We are looking with optimism at 2019”, says Dan Ghiță, president ROMBET. ”First of all, we are celebrating the first important age threshold of our Association: we have 5 years of activity. We are having now over 60 members – operators, producers, distributors, Romanian companies and multinational companies. We made the voice of the Romanian gambling industry heard at over 50 first rank international events, we were main actors in various key moments for the development of our national industry. All of these are reasons of pride but also a challenge on long term. We’ll keep developing our current projects, and we are open to any proposals of improvement and diversification of our activities.
We thank all our members for their trust and support, we thank the entire gambling industry from which, we like to say, we are part of.
Happy New Year, dear colleagues!”
