Johann Graf

Johann Graf is an Austrian businessman, the founder and owner of Novomatic, an Austrian gambling company.

• Johann Graf owns Novomatic Group, which operates casinos worldwide and also sells slot machines, video poker games and electronic table games.
• Raised by his grandparents in a small flat without running water, he apprenticed as a butcher and was expected to take over his family’s butcher shop.
• Instead Graf began importing American pinball machines to Austria via Belgium, then became an agent for a British slot machine company.
• In 1980 he stuck out on his own with Novomatic, which he quickly expanded into Switzerland and then the East Bloc after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
• Novomatic’s profits took a hit in 2017, due in part to heavy costs associated with meeting new German guidelines for gaming terminals.