Billionaire Jon Yarbrough, ranked number 388 on Forbes’ annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, made his fortune developing and supplying a certain type of slot machine found in Native American casinos. He’s worked with more than 100 tribes across the country and now is working with the recently federally recognized Pamunkey Indians in Virginia to develop a casino. Yarbrough purchased 600 acres in New Kent County as a potential site for the Pamunkey casino resort, and he’s also looking at other sites.
Yarbrough’s company Video Gaming Technologies, based in Franklin, Tennessee, was named the fast-growing privately held small company in the U.S. in 2005. In 2014, Yarbrough sold VGT to Aristocrat Technologies for $1.3 billion. He and his wife, Kathy, have put $25 million into a foundation that focuses on mental health, human rights and entrepreneurship.
Yarbrough became involved with Native American gambling after Congress passed the Indian Gaming Act in 1988, allowing tribes to offer bingo with a caller. “I thought maybe video bingo would work, but I didn’t really know what would work legally. Several companies were building multimedia machines that linked together with a main server that served as the caller for bingo games,” he said.
The Justice Department declared video bingo was illegal, so Yarbrough’s company filed an appeal. “The appeals court found that they were legal because it was still bingo and tribes were allowed to use technology to improve what they had. So after the court ruling, I had a road map to start making our own games. We took them to the tribes in Oklahoma, and they were an immediate hit,” Yarbrough said.
Needing more programmers, he purchased Castle Hill Studios in Charlottesville, South Carolina. “They had a long track record of building massive online gaming machines, but they were struggling financially. I bought it and hired more programmers, designers and IT people. We eventually grew to 250 employees. When we sold the company, we had 650.”
Along the way, Yarbrough met with the Pamunkey chief and the tribal council. “It’s amazing that they’ve survived this long after being pushed back to basically this little island in the middle of a river. They’re such great people and they have a dream of economic self-sufficiency. They just want better housing and hospital care and to send their children to college. I fell in love with them and this needs to happen for them fast,” Yarbrough said.
He added he believes in the Pamunkey casino project. “We’ve put together the best team. And we want to be good partners with the state. I think there is a lot of support. I see it from politicians. I’m pretty optimistic that we’ll be able to get the Pamunkeys a Class 3 operation,” Yarbrough said.
