Jon Yarbrough (born 1956/1957) is an American billionaire, the founder of

Video Gaming Technologies Video Gaming Technologies is an American supplier of gambling machines. VGT was founded in 1991 in Franklin, Tennessee by Jon Yarbrough. VGT was privately owned, until it was bought in October 2014 by the Australian company Aristocrat Leisure ...

Early life

Jon Yarbrough has a bachelor's degree from

Tennessee Technological University Tennessee Technological University, commonly referred to as Tennessee Tech, is a public research university in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States. It was formerly known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, and before that as University of Dixie ...

. His first entrepreneurial experience was selling with

Southwestern Advantage Southwestern Advantage, formerly known as Southwestern Company, is an education material sales company based in Nashville, TN. Established in 1855, the privately-owned company recruits college and university students as independent contractors to ...

. An aficionado of

foosball Table football, also known as foosball, table soccer, futbolito in Mexico, Taca Taca in Chile and Metegol in Argentina is a table-top game that is loosely based on association football. The aim of the game is to move the ball into the opponen ...

, he then purchased a foosball table and struck a deal with a bar in Cookeville, Tennessee (where Tennessee Tech is located): if they would store the table for him, he would split the proceeds earned from games played by the bar's clients.

Career

In 1991, Yarbrough founded

. In October 2014, he sold it to the Australian company

Aristocrat Leisure Aristocrat Leisure Limited is an Australian gambling machine manufacturer, which has its administrative and research headquarters in the Sydney suburb of North Ryde. It has marketing and development offices in South Africa, Russia, and the Uni ...

for $1.28 billion. As of September 2015, he had a net worth of US$1.7 billion. In 2020, he ranked No. 327 on the Forbes 400 list of America's richest people.

Personal life

Yarbrough is married with two children and lives in

Franklin, Tennessee Franklin is a city in and county seat of Williamson County, Tennessee, United States. About south of Nashville, it is one of the principal cities of the Nashville metropolitan area and Middle Tennessee. As of 2020, its population was 83,454 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarbrough, Jon Living people People from Franklin, Tennessee Tennessee Technological University alumni American chief executives American chairpersons of corporations American billionaires 1950s births