Gambling is going to get more complicated in Romania.
Parliament unanimously approved the " slot machinelaw".
Gambling halls will be banned in Romanian towns and villages with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants.
Gambling venues have become ubiquitous in Romania over the last few decades.
There are around 12,000 sports betting, bingo, casino and lottery halls across the country.
But there are no recent figures on the number of people addicted to gambling in Romania. The 100,000 people estimated in 2016 may be a far cry from reality.
What's more, the problem reaches the very young: a study by Save the Children revealed that almost 15% of Romanian children spend money on gambling.
Now there's a brake: "It's the first law adopted in Parliament in 30 years against this mafia that has controlled the political world until now."
"Right now, we are fighting an industry that has a total turnover of 10 to 12 billion euros," commented Alfred Simonis, the leader of Romania's Social Democratic Party, quoted on Euronews.
Protests have already broken out. Industrialists complain that they were not consulted and expect the authorities to control the black market - just as they promised.
Even among the MPs (and despite the unanimous vote), opposition leader Ionut Mosteanu left a question hanging in the air: "They thought the slot machines only harmed 15,000 people. There wasn't even a debate to see how many municipalities qualify for those 15,000. Why not 16,000, 17,000, why not 2 million?".
