UNIQUE GAME ACCOUNT. MULTIPLE OPTIONS FOR SANCTIONING OPERATORS?
In accordance with the legal regime governing contraventions, contravention liability may be incurred exclusively by the natural or legal person who actually commits an act classified by law as a contravention.
by Teodora Luca Lawyer C.A. Luca Mihai Catalin
Teodora Luca Lawyer C.A. Luca Mihai Catalin
According to the provisions of Article 1 of Government Ordinance No. 2/2001: “An administrative offense is an act committed with intent, established and punished by law, ordinance, Government decision or, where applicable, by decision of the local council of the commune, town, municipality or sector of the municipality of Bucharest, the county council or the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest.”
The provisions of Article 129 of the Methodological Norms for the Implementation of Government Emergency Ordinance 77/2009 regulate the procedure for registering accounts on online gambling platforms:
(1) Participation in remote gambling games organized by an operator holding a license to organize and an authorization to operate such activities is permitted to players who hold a unique gaming account and are registered in accordance with the provisions of these methodological rules.
(2) In order to register, a player must provide at least the following personal data: first name, last name, date of birth, valid email address, home address, username, password, acceptance of terms and conditions, voluntary confirmation of being over 18 years of age. Upon acceptance of the registration, the gaming platform will automatically generate a unique code assigned to the player.
(3) Registered player may fund their gaming account with a maximum amount of 200 euros or equivalent, using the payment methods accepted by the organizer, but withdrawals from the gaming account may only be made after verification of the authenticity of the data provided by the player.
(4) In order to verify the authenticity of the data provided by the player, the organizer will request information about citizenship or tax residence, and in the case of Romanian citizens, it will also request the personal identification number. The remote gambling organizer is required to make every effort to verify the authenticity of the data provided by the player within a maximum of 30 calendar days from the date of registration of the gaming account.
(5) If the player, within a maximum of 30 calendar days from the date of funding the player account, does not confirm the authenticity of the data provided or is found on the list of self-excluded or undesirable players, the organizer shall close the account, and the amounts in the account will be retained and transferred to the state budget no later than the 10th day of the month following the month in which the funds were retained. In the event of death during the account verification period, the amounts will be returned to the heirs, in accordance with the law.
(6) Any changes to the gaming accounts will be automatically transmitted to the security server located in Romania.
In an attempt to identify a measure to compel companies to comply with the instructions on the unique account (published on their website on March 13, 2025), whose normative value is still under dispute, some inspectors from the National Gambling Office rushed to apply the administrative penalty, considering that the conditions set out in Article 129, in particular the provisions of Article 129(5) of the Rules, were met.
This theory is, in our opinion, deeply flawed. The obligation imposed on gambling operators by Article 129(5) of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 77/2009 consists in the verification by the gambling organisers of the identity of the holder, based on the data provided by the participant at the time of registration, which must be carried out within a maximum of 30 days.
UNIQUE GAME ACCOUNT
According to the aforementioned provisions, if the player does not provide the documents necessary for identity verification or is identified in the register of self-excluded persons, the organizer is required to transfer the game account balance to the state budget.
The text does not impose a permanent monitoring obligation on organisers, but applies exclusively to the procedure for validating the identity and completing the registration of the participant, which is completed within the time limit expressly provided for by law.
If the text (Article 129 of the Rules) is intended to give effect to the single account rule (on which discussions appear to be far from concluded), even the grounds relied on by the authority, where the article was invoked to justify the sanction and which are based on the uniqueness of the registration, then the verification of the registration is unique, i.e., the identity and status of the player must be verified only once, at the time of registration on the platform (at the time of registration of the gaming account on one of the websites operated by the company). For all other registrations on any other websites, the company cannot consider that it does not know the identity of the player (whose identification details have already been confirmed in accordance with the provisions of Article 129 of the Rules).
Therefore, sanctioning the company on the grounds that it did not comply with the provisions of Article 129 of the Rules with regard to any of the subsequent registrations (sometimes occurring months or even years after the date of verification of the player’s identity) is erroneous, as this hypothesis is not provided for by law.
The only provisions governing the legal regime of self-exclusion in remote gambling are those set out in Article 132 (3) to (7) of the Methodological Rules, which involve action by the gambling account holder:
“(3) The gambling organiser must provide the player with a facility enabling him to request temporary or permanent exclusion from the game or interruption of access to the game for a pre-determined period of up to 7 days.
(4) If a player has self-excluded from participating in a game of the remote gambling organizer, the latter must inform the player about the option of counseling and treatment for pathological gambling addiction at a treatment center.
(5) The remote gambling organizer or its authorized representative shall keep a register of players who have requested permanent or temporary exclusion or interruption of access to gambling, which shall be presented to the supervisory authorities upon request.
(6) A player who is registered in the register referred to in paragraph (5) may request to be removed from this register only after a period of 6 months has elapsed since their registration in the register.
(7) Remote gambling organizers are prohibited from sending advertising material to players who have temporarily or permanently self-excluded or who have requested the interruption of access to gambling.
The attempts by the authorities to standardize practice do not seem to have been successful, at least for the time being, as identical or similar situations are interpreted and sometimes sanctioned differently by the supervisory authorities (sometimes even by the same supervisory authorities), and operators apply the legal provisions in different ways.
Given the consequences this has for the rights of gambling organisers on the one hand and the rights of participants in gambling on the other, an in-depth analysis of the legal provisions and a uniform approach by the authority are essential to ensure the principle of legality and proportionality of sanctions.
