It’s one thing to watch your RRSP shrink because the stock market slumps. It would be quite another to have to push back retirement because the Leafs suck again this year.
What happened: A firm called Volatility Shares (can’t say they didn’t warn you, with a name like that) has filed plans with the SEC to offer ETFs that track the performance of each NHL team.
Each team’s fund will rise and fall based on its on-ice performance, using a proprietary formula calculated from 55 statistics developed by a company called FutureSports, which bills itself as a seller of “underlying benchmarks for tradable financial products” based on sports statistics.
Why it matters: These ETFs bear a striking resemblance to sports betting, except that they come packaged as an investment product, meaning that they would (if approved) be tradable inside registered accounts, like RRSPs and TFSAs, and sidestep gambling regulations.
That sounds risky, but it seems to be exactly what many people want: a recent survey found that 52% of Gen Z retail investors redirected money meant for investing to sports betting, and 26% considered sports betting to be a part of their long-term financial strategy.
Our take: The vast majority of sports bettors and prediction market users lose money, but there’s clear demand among retail traders for riskier products that more closely resemble a roulette table than a traditional investment. Whether it’s zero-day options, leveraged crypto ETFs, or indexes tied to how many goals the Habs score, expect the finance industry to keep supplying more creative ways for people to gamble.—TS
