PENN Entertainment has pulled in former FanDuel SVP of Product Billy Turchin to lead the company’s numerous online gaming brands into the future.
In a LinkedIn post, Turchin announced that he has joined the company as PENN Interactive’s Chief Product Officer.
On that position, he will have over-arching responsibility to lead digital product strategy for the company’s range of online gaming brands, including the cross-U.S. online sportsbook ESPN Bet, the Hollywood Casino app that has recently launched in three states and theScore Bet (both sports betting and online casino) and brand-new theScore Casino apps in Ontario.
Turchin said in his post that PENN “features the largest and most diverse gaming footprint in North America” with a speciality in omnichannel gaming experiences.
“I’m thrilled to be part of shaping what comes next and grateful for the opportunity to be a disrupter in this rapidly evolving industry,” he added.
Turchin’s most relevant past experience is three-and-a-half years leading product strategy for FanDuel as its SVP, up until this month.
In that role, he was responsible for a range of focuses, including customer acquisition and player account management, wallet and payments, KYC strategy, anti-money laundering and fraud prevention, research and analytics, geolocation and regulatory compliance.
His appointment comes a year to the month that the Levy family, the founding family behind theScore, stepped down from their roles at PENN Interactive. Benjie Levy, son of theScore founder John Levy, was PENN’s Head of Interactive as well as theScore’s COO until April 2024.
At the time of the announcement of the Levys’ exits, PENN said it was in the final stages of its search for a new Head of Interactive. However, no appointment in that particular role was ever made. Instead, LaBerge was appointed on April 22, 2024, as CTO, a role which PENN said at the time would see him serve as “the key business leader for the company’s Interactive division.”
Under LaBerge, ESPN Bet has spread across numerous more U.S. states but failed to make the dent in the market that was initially hoped, Hollywood Casino has been transitioned from purely retail to an omnichannel brand and theScore has added new features and the new standalone casino app.
