This Week in Canadian Money: There are changes to the lottery

+ A stock exchange buys another stock exchange, Rogers is a sports company, RBC goes golfing, and more.

Jared

Apr 24, 2026

Hey, welcome back.

Here are 4 things that caught my eye this week in Canadian money (+ something else that’s interesting!):

1. TMX Group announced it will buy Cboe Canada and Cboe Australia for $409M

The Toronto Stock Exchange (which is owned by TMX) isn’t the only stock exchange in Canada
Cboe Canada is another, and it accounts for around 13% of trading $ in the country

The deal hasn’t closed yet. It’s still subject to regulatory approval in both countries, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. But for now, the headline is: Cboe was Cbought.

2. Rogers reported Q1 results

In short: they made a lot of money.

The bigger story to me is the sports and media side of their business. To recap, Rogers owns:

Sportsnet
The Blue Jays
The Rogers Centre
75% of MLSE, which owns:
- The Maple Leafs
- The Raptors
- The Argos
- Toronto FC

These are some of the most recognizable, important, and valuable teams in North America. And remember, this is a telecom company we’re talking about!

Since Rogers is public, I listened to the earnings call. During it, the executives mentioned a four-step plan for the future of their sports business:

Buy the remaining 25% of MLSE they don’t own.
Combine sports and media assets (the teams, network, venues) into one new company
- Which they say could be valued at over $25B
Sell some of this new company
- Either to private investors or through an IPO (it’s unclear - they didn’t say the specific plan)
Use the money from the sale to pay down debt
- Presumably debt from when they acquired Shaw

The company said this could happen in late 2026 or early 2027. By then, hopefully the Jays are healthy again and have won the World Series. And if they don’t win, please please please, to the Baseball Gods reading this (because of course they read a newsletter about Canadian business): don’t let it be the Dodgers. Any team but the Dodgers - they cannot keep winning.

And not the Yankees either (that’s out of spite).

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In terms of sports team ownership, Rogers has amassed a pretty impressive portfolio. Whether it’s the biggest - maybe, maybe not.

Here are other ownership groups and some of the teams they own (keep in mind this excludes the arenas and stadiums they own - which are big deals in their own right!):

Fenway Sports Group:

Boston Red Sox
Liverpool F.C.
Pittsburgh Penguins

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment:

New Jersey Devils
Philadelphia 76ers
Washington Commanders

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment:

Arsenal F.C.
Colorado Avalanche
Denver Nuggets
Los Angeles Rams

Madison Square Garden Sports:

New York Knicks
New York Rangers

I’m curious what you think:

3. RBC ran a new golf advertising campaign

They have a commercial that features pro golfers playing on a golf course
The RBC logo is visible on their shirts
The video ends with the text “Capital Markets | Wealth Management”:

A commercial might be an odd thing to analyze, but bear with me! I think it’s interesting and worth getting into.

If you compare this to their other commercials, two things stand out:

Theme
This commercial is related to golf. It’s different from others, like the ones with Will Arnett where he’s walking and talking on a street.
Product
This commercial mentions capital markets and wealth management, which is different from what other RBC ads mention, such as personal banking:

My take:

This must be intentional.
By putting their logo on golfers and mentioning “Capital Markets” and “Wealth Management,” RBC isn’t trying to reach someone looking to open a new chequing account.
They’re getting in front of business decision-makers who would hire the bank for M&A purposes, raising money, financing a yacht even.

If you want to reach a corporate exec, it’s probably wise to advertise with golf. KPMG and Morgan Stanley also associate with the sport, probably for similar reasons:

Phil Mickelson, former longtime wearer of KPMG hats. Justin Rose, #5 in the world, repping a trifecta of logos.

Contrast this with how RBC advertised another product: for the launch of their new investing app, GoSmart, they hosted a Reddit AMA. Likely because the ideal user – a first-time investor– probably browses Reddit (guilty).

It’s interesting to see how a company tailors its messaging and where it goes to reach the right audience.

I hope this explanation of a seemingly random commercial was a hole-in-one. Hope you’re not teed off after reading it!

4. Updates to Lotto Max

The cost of a ticket increased: $5 → $6
There are more numbers to choose from: 50 → 52
The odds of winning any prize improved: approx 1 in 7 → 1 in 5.8

And there’s also this change, which has me really bummed out: the odds of winning the main jackpot worsened from 1 in 33,294,800 → 1 in 33,446,140.

Just when I was feeling lucky, the odds change!

But I’m hopeful. One of these days I’ll hear the “winner, gagnant” jingle. And when I win, I’ll probably buy… oh I don’t know… a 2016 Bombardier Challenger 650. I heard one recently came on the market in Ontario.

And here’s something else that’s interesting (and bank-related)

I read a headline that mentioned something called Toronto Stadium. I thought, “Hmm… Toronto Stadium? What’s that?”

It turns out it’s related to the World Cup. FIFA has rules that stadiums are not allowed to have commercial branding from non-official brands. This means stadiums are temporarily renamed during the tournament. E.g.:

AT&T Stadium → Dallas Stadium
Levi’s Stadium → San Francisco Bay Area Stadium
BMO Field → Toronto Stadium

BMO no mo’. Screenshot from FIFA site. Annotation my own.

So imagine this:

BMO spends millions to have the naming rights for a stadium.
↓
That stadium then gets chosen to host matches for the biggest tournament in the world.
↓
The bank is probably thinking, “Woohoo. Millions, even billions, of eyeballs on our brand. We hit the jackpot.”1
↓
But wait, not so fast. Flag on the play. Millions of eyeballs will be on Toronto Stadium, not BMO Field.

Tough break.

Thanks for reading! Interesting week - there was an acquisition, a few sports-related stories, and the lottery… that was a ~~Lotto~~ lot to cover. Wasn’t expecting to talk about golf so much, but hey, you can’t say I don’t give you variety every week.

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And here’s last week’s post in case you missed it: