Johann Graf

Johann Graf was born on 3 January 1946 in Vienna, Austria, and was raised by his grandparents in a small flat without running water. He completed an apprenticeship as a butcher and became Austria's youngest master butcher at age 23, but chose not to take over his family's butcher shop. In 1974, he co-founded Brodnik & Graf GmbH with electrical retailer Gerhard Brodnik to import Belgian pinball machines and place them in pubs and cafes. In 1980, with a starting capital of 50,000 Austrian schillings, he founded Novomatic Automatenhandels GmbH (now Novomatic AG) to manufacture gaming machines.

He quickly expanded into Switzerland, dominating 70% of that market by 1982, and by 1990 Novomatic had branches in more than 50 countries. Under his ownership, Novomatic grew to employ about 30,000 people (2021). In January 2021, Graf transferred 20% of the shares in the holding company Novo Invest GmbH to his son Thomas Graf (CTO) and two managing directors, marking a generational transition while retaining overall ownership. He is known to avoid the public eye, collects vintage cars (mainly Jaguars), and is divorced with three children. Forbes ranked his net worth at US$7.1 billion in 2024.