The Ontario government is in the middle of conducting a sweeping review of its gaming industry, but Tourism, Culture, and Gaming Minister Stan Cho will no longer be overseeing it.
Progressive Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament Cho resigned from his ministerial position in Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet on Friday after coming under criticism for expensing hotel stays in Toronto.
Global News first reported that Cho, who lives not far from the provincial legislative building in downtown Toronto, claimed more than $16,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses on hotel stays in the city over the last three years, including around $11,700 in 2025-26. After a week of intense media scrutiny, he resigned on Friday, although he will remain the MPP for Willowdale in north Toronto.
“Earlier today, I accepted the resignation of Stan Cho from Cabinet, effective immediately,” said Ford’s office, as quoted by Global. “He has acknowledged and taken responsibility for his mistake.”
Cho wrote in a statement posted on X that he was taking full responsibility for what he described as “a mistake”, although he maintained that his expense reports were within Ontario government rules.
He added that he repaid the expensed amount “to the penny.”
What next for Ontario gaming?
Cho spoke at SBC Summit Canada in Toronto in both 2025 and 2026 about Ontario’s gambling industry.
In 2025, Cho announced that his ministry would launch a high-level review of the online and land-based gaming in the province with the aims of increasing efficiency, ensuring the sector delivers stronger economic returns, continuing to protect players and ensuring greater synergy between land-based gaming and commercial iGaming.
He noted at that time that the rapid expansion and pervasiveness of Ontario’s online gambling industry meant that various “problems are evolving”, although he vowed his ministry would not tangle up the imndustry in red tape.
Eleven months later, at SBC Summit Canada 2026, he reflected that while Ontario has created “one of the most successful markets in the world,” second thought may be needed on some things.
In particular, he listed six areas in which he said the government we can reduce red tape and streamline processes:
- Anti-money laundering
- Audits
- Communications
- Data management
- Financial oversight
- Responsible gaming
He also told attendees that Ontario is considering whether it needs to tighten its online gambling advertising rules as MPPs continue to report constituents’ concerns over gambling addiction and gaming’s exposure to children and vulnerable demographics.
“This is a growing problem … We are very seriously looking at additional measures on the advertising side to make sure this doesn’t make the problem grow,” he said at this year’s SBC Summit Canada in May.
That comes amid continued federal discussion of Bill S-211 in Parliament, a proposal to establish a national framework on gambling advertising that has passed the Senate two years in a row. Meanwhile, a Liberal MPP’s bill to completely ban iGaming advertising in the province was quickly voted down at Queen’s Park in May.
Interim replacement Downey knows gaming well
Now, Stan Cho is out.
He will be replaced as Ontario’s gaming minister on an interim basis by the province’s Attorney General Doug Downey. An experienced hand when it comes to gaming, Downey has been AG since 2019 and helped to oversee the creation and implementation of Ontario’s regulated iGaming market.
iGaming Ontario (iGO) President and CEO Joseph Hillier was Downey’s Chief of Staff before moving to first to the role of Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) Chief Strategy Officer and then taking the top job at iGO.
Downey will now take up the mantle of leading Ontario’s overarching approach to a provincial gambling in industry that processes billions of dollars in wagers by residents and produces hundreds of millions in gross gaming revenues for operators every single month.
iGO-managed iGaming (excluding Ontario Lottery and Gaming) generated more than $800m in tax revenue for the Ontario government in 2025 alone.
