The law comes, the “cheats” remain. How Romania fails in the fight against the harmful mirage that gambling takes you out of poverty

The law banning “pizzas” in localities with less than 15,000 inhabitants comes into force at the end of April 2024, but operators with valid licenses (which are renewed once a year) can continue to operate in localities with ban, until the licenses expire. Thus, it will take at least a few more months until the “bakers” will disappear from villages, communes and small towns.

One Romanian out of three is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Regardless of the social context, where they live and how many members their family has, children and young people are the most vulnerable to the risk of not having a decent living. With the pressure of this prospect knocking on their door every day, ready to take risks, but also fed by aggressive and ubiquitous advertising the illusion that they can get rich overnight just by “playing”, many of them end up going to the halls of ” the pawnshops” or at the betting houses, to try to make some quick money.

In the long run, these habits can have consequences at least as serious as social exclusion. Because, also in the long term, in this type of gambling it is always “the house” that wins, not the players. Players are always left with the illusion, and the luckiest ones also pick up some winnings, which they will lose over time anyway, if they play often enough.

Read more on Panorama.ro.