IN GAME
Written by: Brant James
Boomer’s Sports Book 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…..
