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Catena Media Us, Inc.
8565 S. Eastern Avenue
Suite 150
Las Vegas, NV 89123

(646) 543-0245

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Play Illinois Team

Managing Editor: Marvin Wilks

Before joining Play Illinois in the summer of 2022, Marvin Wilks worked for 25 years as a writer and editor, mainly covering horse racing in Canada. Marvin holds a master’s degree in journalism from Western University and was a 2018 inductee into the Communicators’ Corner of the US Harness Racing Hall of Fame. Beyond a deep passion for family and music, Marvin has a mostly tragic, lifelong love of Detroit sports teams. He lives in Port Stanley, Ontario, with his wife and their beloved Vizsla named California.

Read more from Marvin here

Lead Writer: Thomas Backus

Thomas Backus has been covering news and sports for over a decade for both online and TV broadcasts. He was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN and is an alum of Minnesota State University: Moorhead. He recently dove into tribal casino and online gambling news. He also covered the launch of sports betting in Arizona. Thomas has experience as a reporter and videographer and has covered high school, college and professional sports throughout his career, most notably following Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Suns, Minnesota Vikings and North Dakota State University football.

Read more from Thomas here.

Contributor: David Kilpatrick

David Kilpatrick is a 2020 graduate of Northern Illinois University hailing from Chicago. David specializes in coverage of sports betting and legalization. Former teammates and coworkers describe him as a nice guy who tries hard and loves the game.

Read more from David here.

Contributor: Robbie McMahon

Robbie McMahon writes words. A lot of them. Most of those words can be found in gambling publications such as Play Illinois, iGaming Business, Gaming Today, Bonus.com, MidwestSharp.com, ICE 365, and IGB North America. Robbie also covers pop culture and books for Tor.com and TheQuillToLive.com. Robbie has more than eight years of experience writing about gambling and entertainment.

Read more from Robbie here.

Contributor: Jason Nunez

Jason Nunez was born and raised in Southern Louisiana, just a short pirogue ride away from New Orleans. He started his journalism career at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has been a writer and columnist in New Jersey since 1998. He’s won 14 statewide press awards and earned his first Associated Press Sports Editors Top 10 award in 2022.

Read more from Jason here.

Content Manager: Bryan Fielding

Bryan Fielding, who lives in the Chicago area, was previously the Managing Editor for Play-illinois.com. Before, he was a college sports writer for NCAA.com (beginning in 2015). Joe’s work has also appeared in Bleacher Report, FoxSports.com and NBA.com. Growing up, Boozell squared off against Anthony Davis and Frank Kaminsky in the Chicagoland basketball scene … you can imagine how that went.

Read more from Bryan Fielding here.

Head of Production, Play Sites: Janet Adams

Janet Adamsis the content lead for Play-branded sites, including Play-illinois.com. She has experience writing and reporting on poker culture and the legalization and launch of sports betting in the US. Yuhl was a business story strategist for small businesses. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications.

More About Play Illinois

Play Illinois is the Illinois-centric site for a series of Play-branded news and informational sites available throughout the country. We cover all aspects of Illinois gambling, including the Chicago casino project, the burgeoning sports betting industry, casinos, lottery and VGTs.

We are not directly affiliated with any specific casino, sportsbook, mobile sports betting app or gaming website. We are an independently owned and operated commercial organization.