Official language: Romanian
Population: 21,504,442
Currency: Leu (RON)

Current Exchange Rate
1 EUR = 4.2689 RON
1 GBP = 4.6391 RON
1 USD = 2.8452 RON

Poker in Romania
Romania has no poker rooms. The only places to play live poker games for real money are in one of the country's two dozen casinos. This means there is not much exposure to the game outside of casino gambling circles. This is slowly starting to change as more tours and tournaments come through the country and get media attention, but the game does not enjoy widespread fame in the country.

The number of poker tournaments held in Romania gets bigger every year. Casino Palace, the country's largest casino, holds large Texas Hold Em tournaments eight times each year, with prizes up to $5000. The Best Romania Poker Tour is a fairly new event, which just started in 2008. The country has also produced some excellent players, such as Crisitian Dragomir who won nearly $200,000 in Event #54 of the 2008 WSOP.

Online Poker in Romania
Online poker in Romania is even less widespread. The legal status of online poker and other forms of internet gambling in the country is fuzzy, since there is no specific regulation that talks about gambling online. The Romanian government does not give licenses to operate online gambling websites, so all online poker in Romania must take place at foreign websites. There are a number of major international online poker rooms that provide Romanian translations of their websites.

Some of Romania's larger poker tournaments are also connected to internet poker sites. The 2008 Best Romania Poker Tour was sponsored by several major international online poker sites, and the Romanian Poker Tour (RPT) had online qualifiers at another offshore site. The relationship between Romanian poker and poker on the internet will surely grow as the popularity of the game in the country increases.