Johann Graf

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Johann Graf (born 3 January 1946) is an Austrian billionaire businessman, the founder and owner of Novomatic, an Austrian gambling company.

Graf was born in Austria on January 3, 1946. He grew up with his grandparents in Vienna-Döbling. He completed an apprenticeship as a butcher^[1][2] and was Austria's youngest master butcher at the age of 23. However, Graf did not want to continue his parents' business, a butcher's shop with a pub and a few guest rooms in Perchtoldsdorf.^[3][4]

In 1974, Graf founded Brodnik & Graf GmbH with the electrical retailer Gerhard Brodnik and started importing Belgian pinball machines, which were installed in pubs and cafes. In 1980, he started manufacturing gaming machines and founded Novomatic Automatenhandels GmbH with a starting capital of 50,000 schillings.^[3][4]

His first success came in 1982, when he founded a sales company in Switzerland and soon dominated 70% of the Swiss market.^[3] By 1990, Novomatic had branches in more than 50 countries. As a result, the company grew to become one of the largest integrated gaming groups in the world with around 30,000 employees in 2021.^[5]

On January 28, 2021, it was announced that Graf had given away 20% of the shares in Novomatic's holding company, Novo Invest GmbH (which itself holds 90% of Novomatic), 10% to his son Thomas Graf, who is Chief Technology Officer of Novomatic AG,^[6] and 5% each to managing directors of Novo Invest, Birgit Wimmer and Ryszard Presch (CEO of Novomatic AG). Graf himself spoke of a generational change.^[5][3]

Alongside Dietrich Mateschitz, René Benko and Karl Wlaschek, Graf is considered one of Austria's most successful self-made billionaires.^[4] In 2012, he was the richest man in Austria together with Dietrich Mateschitz, with a net worth of USD 5.3 billion. In 2015, he was the second richest Austrian with a fortune of USD 6.6 billion and ranked 208th on the Forbes list.^[7]

According to Forbes’ list of global billionaires, he is listed at number 140 with a net worth of $10.3 billion as of June 2019.^[8]

Graf is divorced with three children and lives in Vienna. He collects vintage cars and owns some 120, most of which are Jaguars.^[9] He is known to avoid the public eye.^[1][2]

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