Boomer’s Sportsbook probably would not have made it to within a week of opening if Joe Asher’s trusted circle of friends and peers weren’t willing to come along. At 57, a retired former CEO at William Hill, he’d done much in the gambling industry, but it was a little early, he conceded, to take up pickleball and watch sunsets.
And gambling, he told InGame, has been as much something he lives as it is he does for a living. After receiving a unanimous final round of approvals from the Nevada Gaming Control Board & Commission (NGCB) on Thursday, he’s on schedule to begin the next chapter with Boomer’s taking bets on Aug. 1.
Asher grew up watching his father bet on horses and learned to play cards by watching his dad’s regular games. Joe was shooting dice in the back of a butcher shop at King and 8th in Wilmington, Delaware, by age 9 — “The butcher shop closed at 5:00, and at 5:01, the dice game would break out in the back,” he remembered — learned to count cards by 12, and was working at some of those same horse tracks by 16.
While he calls International Gaming Technology — where he served as president of sports betting from 2021-2024 — a wonderful company and enjoyed his time prior as CEO of William Hill US, he’s never considered himself a “big company guy.”
But his appetite for his life-long business and pleasure persisted. So he went about building an intimate team for the next chapter. There’s been a joy, he said, to having actual conversations with co-workers in an actual office.
“I still do have the entrepreneurial itch to get out and give it a go,” he said. “I think one of my real skills is being able to put together a team and then keep everybody together and push everybody to be their best. If I couldn’t do that this time around, that might have nipped this whole idea in the bud, because if I can’t put the right team together, then how could I possibly be successful?”
And so began Boomer’s, a sportsbook named after a dog named after a horse.
Team Boomer’s comes together
Key among those initial hires were old friends and co-workers and industry veterans that Asher introduced during the Thursday Nevada Gaming Control Board meeting as “most talented team ever assembled” for such a venture:
- Dave Grolman, senior vice president of sportsbook and customer support operations:
“Grolman is the fellow,” Asher said, “who runs the sportsbook operations and the customer support. He was so important in the growth of that William Hill business.”
- Nick Bogdanovich, head of trading:
“Nick and I had a great run at William Hill from the first day until literally the last day when Caesars bought the business,” Asher noted. “And I think we complemented each other well.”
Said Bogdanovich: “It’s exciting, to say the least. Launching a brand new venture like this gets the juices flowing again. It’s something I’ve never really done. So at age 63 years young, I’m ready to roll. I’m excited. I mean, it’s daunting, obviously, trying to crack into such a competitive arena, but I think we’ll pull it off.”
- Debinique Blackburn, SVP of human resources
- Shawn Odell, controller
- Gina Cervone, VP of legal & compliance
“One of the things you need to have when you start a business like this is a young lawyer, because there’s so much legal work to be done that you need a lawyer on staff who’s hungry and willing to figure all this stuff out,” Asher explained. “And we found that person: Gina Cervone, who was working for MGM and left MGM late last year to come on board with us. She was actually teammate number one and was involved in setting a lot of this up.”
- Andrew Patterson, VP of mobile
“Andrew has a long record in the sports betting industry. He worked at OpenBet. He worked with the SaharaBets venture and his family-owned Las Vegas consultants back in the day. And so he literally grew up around the sports betting business. This is the first time I’ve worked with Andrew.”
- Desirae Reid, director of marketing
- Adam Pullen, deputy director of trading
“Adam and I go all the way back to Brandywine, which was, of course, the company that I had started and sold to William Hill,” Asher said. “Adam has an incredibly deep knowledge of this space.”
- Dave Lichterman, director of sportsbook & customer support operations
- A.G. Burnett, chairman of compliance committee
- Scott Scherer, gaming attorney
- Wanakea Dixon, ticket writer
“We’ve got a pretty good chunk of the old band back together,” Asher concluded. “And ever since the news broke, others have been reaching out as well. And you need new faces and fresh perspectives. And we’ve got some pretty experienced people in the industry.”
Why Nevada needs another sportsbook
Asher sees an opportunity for an independent retail/mobile sportsbook operator in Nevada, particularly because registration there still must be conducted in person. Targeting less-populated areas, initially, where William Hill controls the market is also of interest.
After gaining final approvals from the NGCB, Boomer’s will open in the old Commercial Casino in Elko on Aug. 1, and at Ellis Island in Las Vegas and Casino Valle Verde in Henderson, tentatively, Aug. 4.
“I think it creates an opportunity for someone to build a network,” he said. “Hopefully we get up to, 24, maybe 30 locations that are spread across the state of Nevada where people can obviously go in, bet on sports, but also sign up for their mobile account or fund or withdraw from their mobile account.”
Boomer’s will differentiate itself, Asher hopes, with “compelling” sign-up offers and promotions and competitive pricing.
“I’ve always been of the view that if you give people a fair shake, you’ll be better off in the long run,” Asher explained. “It’s not about having an artificially high margin for the sake of being able to report out a higher margin, because would you rather hold ten percent of a million dollars or seven percent of two million dollars?
“I think those things hopefully will be enough to get folks to give us a shot.”
