Greg Carlin had already helped take a casino company onto the New York Stock Exchange when an investment banker called about New Hampshire. This was 2022. Carlin went to look at gaming properties in Nashua, Salem and Hampton. At Ocean Gaming, overlooking Hampton Beach, something beyond the license caught his attention: the staff. He liked the welcoming feel of the place. After years of developing casinos, he was still paying attention to the people who said hello.
The building had red brick and a second-floor patio intended to suggest the French Quarter in New Orleans. Carlin asked the landlord whether he could lighten its appearance. By May 2024, the brick was white, the name was Beach Club Casino, and a former T-shirt shop had been absorbed into an expanded gaming floor. In the casino business, even a change of shirt can involve demolition.
There is a pleasing change of scale here. Carlin's previous chapter included regional casino developments and a publicly traded online gambling business. His next one involved a beach property and a shopping mall. The ambition survived the move. The surroundings became more particular: a staff, a street, a building that needed work.
Atlantic City, then the balance sheet
Carlin's interest in casinos goes back to occasional trips to Atlantic City while he was a University of Pennsylvania student. A Chicago native, he attended Penn from 1984 to 1988 and earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Wharton. The route from there to a gaming floor passed through investment banking, a profession well acquainted with risk and considerably less fond of calling it gambling.
He worked at Lazard Freres from June 1990 to August 1992, then at Bankers Trust from October 1992 to May 1995. The following month he joined LAMB Capital Advisors as a managing director. That private investment role continued until December 2020. He also served on the board of Falls Management Company from 1999 to 2019.
These were overlapping commitments, rather than a tidy succession of jobs. By January 2005 he was CEO of Rush Street Gaming, the business he co-founded with Neil Bluhm. Capital, development and operations sat together in his working life. His eventual move into online casinos would add another discipline to that mixture, while keeping the customer at its center.
Two Rush Streets, two kinds of door
During Carlin's tenure, Rush Street developed seven land-based mixed-use casino projects in the United States and Canada. The Rivers properties included Des Plaines, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Schenectady. G2's account of his career puts investment across the seven developments at more than $3 billion. That figure belongs to the projects; it describes neither his personal fortune nor a single company sale.
The development work included negotiation over what a casino should look like to its neighbors. In Philadelphia in 2008, Carlin discussed possible changes to SugarHouse's design with Mayor Michael Nutter. The proposals addressed concerns about the riverfront site, including whether the design could accommodate the street grid envisioned for the waterfront. Before a project could welcome a customer, it had to make a case about its place in the city. Those discussions give the large investment totals some texture: the work included questions about streets and buildings as well as gaming floors.
The next business had a different entrance. In 2012, Carlin, Bluhm and Richard Schwartz founded Rush Street Interactive. Rush Street Gaming and Rush Street Interactive were separately owned businesses. One dealt in physical destinations; the other built an online casino and sportsbook operation. Keeping the distinction clear matters when following Carlin's career, because he would eventually leave each on a different schedule.
RSI's first social gaming site, SugarHouse Casino4Fun, arrived in July 2015. Its first real-money online casino, PlaySugarHouse.com, launched in New Jersey in September 2016. An integrated online sportsbook followed there in August 2018. The sequence is revealing: social play, then casino, then sports. Online wagering was being assembled through successive products, with each new doorway asking customers to become comfortable with a different way of playing.
during his Rush Street tenure
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What the casino floor knew
In a December 2020 interview, Carlin described an obstacle that a software demonstration could easily miss. Many customers of the physical casinos still had not tried playing online. Some were uncomfortable entering a credit card number or opening an account. Familiarity with the building did not automatically become confidence in the screen.
“I think having a bricks and mortar experience and background really helps to understand the customer,” he said. He discussed the goal of bringing physical and online rewards together, while acknowledging that the company had not yet completed that integration. The useful detail is the unfinished part. A shared brand and a customer database did not make all the operational work disappear.
The insight was practical. A regular visitor might know exactly where to park, which table to approach and whom to ask for help. An online account rearranged those small certainties. Carlin's comments put the work of explaining and reassuring alongside the work of building technology. A casino could fit into a phone; the relationship with its customers still had to be earned.
“I think having a bricks and mortar experience and background really helps to understand the customer.”Greg Carlin, December 2020
The public chapter, and the exit
In July 2020, RSI announced a proposed combination with dMY Technology Group, a special purpose acquisition company. The announcement anticipated an initial enterprise value of about $1.78 billion for the combined business. The transaction closed on December 29, and trading under the RSI symbol began the following day. Carlin had led the company from its founding through its arrival on the public market.
Recognition followed. Carlin, Bluhm and Schwartz were named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 Midwest Award winners. Then, on August 12, 2021, Schwartz became CEO and Carlin moved to vice chairman. Carlin's explanation emphasized Schwartz's contribution to RSI's proprietary technology and online operations. This was a transfer to a fellow founder who had been president since the company's beginning.
On December 28, 2021, Carlin resigned from the vice chairmanship and his other RSI roles. His departure from Rush Street Gaming followed separately: Tim Drehkoff took over as CEO effective May 1, 2022. Bluhm credited Carlin with recruiting and developing talent. By the end of that year, Carlin was announcing G2 Gaming, putting another company name beside a familiar occupation: casino builder.
- August 2021RSI CEO → vice chairman
- December 2021Leaves RSI roles
- May 2022Rush Street Gaming CEO transition
- December 2022Announces G2 Gaming
The shopping mall gets another evening
New Hampshire's changing gaming market gave that new business somewhere to begin. The state had approved historical horse racing in 2021. The machines resembled slots but used the results of past horse races. In February 2024, Carlin said the earlier, low-stakes table-game properties had barely registered on his investment map. The new format changed his assessment.
His New Hampshire operation, Granite State Gaming & Hospitality, took on Ocean Gaming and a Rochester project. By early 2024 he was investing $25 million in refurbishing and expanding the two. In Rochester, he had bought Lilac Mall for $5 million in 2023. Plans involved turning part of the retail property into a casino, with improvements to the parking lot and the building's appearance.
Lilac Club held its VIP ribbon-cutting on March 10, 2025, ahead of its March 14 public opening. The completed venue brought gaming machines, live table games, a 12-table poker room and dining into the mall. It operated within New Hampshire's charitable gaming system, connecting the business to local nonprofit organizations. A development spreadsheet had become a place people could actually enter.
Sometimes the owner takes a seat
Carlin's connection with Lilac extended beyond the ceremony. In August 2025, he played in its “Beat the Champ” poker tournament weekend, which brought Phil Hellmuth to New Hampshire. Shaun Deeb was also among the competitors. Brandon Cantu won the main $1,200 buy-in event, beating a field of 136 players for $29,000.
The result offers a useful correction to the usual executive portrait. The owner was part of the field; someone else collected the winner's prize. It is a small, documented glimpse of Carlin participating in the entertainment his business sells. No grand theory of his personality is required to enjoy the scene.
The business continued to extend its reach. A July 2025 partnership with Gaming Analytics brought analytics tools to Lilac and Beach Club, aimed at loyalty programs, guest experiences and floor operations. In March 2026, plans for a Littleton property targeted an early 2027 opening following a $10 million acquisition. That remained a development timetable, with the work of delivering another venue still ahead.
Back through the digital door
The physical properties were only part of G2's direction. By summer 2026, G2 Digital, co-founded by Carlin and Dan Alexander, had launched Vegas Club Casino in New Jersey through a market-access partnership with Caesars. Alexander brought operating experience from Mansion, bet365 and PlayStar. Carlin was back in a state where RSI had launched its first real-money online casino a decade earlier.
The new operation used White Hat Gaming's player account management platform. In September 2026, G2 Digital's partnership with development firm The Unit covered the website and mobile application, including engineering and user experience work. Its announced expansion plans included Pennsylvania, Ontario and Alberta, subject to regulatory approval. Those were intentions, rather than a list of completed launches.
Across the beach, the mall and the app, Carlin keeps returning to the same practical territory: how a casino works for the person using it. The settings have changed, along with the companies and partners. His next chapter still contains the questions visible in that first New Hampshire visit. Who welcomes the guest? What needs fixing? And what would make the experience worth coming back for?