Michael Anthony Griffin Sr. is the CEO of National Business Center, Inc., a skill-based gaming company based in Knightdale, North Carolina. Since March 2018 he has led the company through a period of expansion that includes the Vegas-Style Rewards program, the Vegas-Style online casino, and the Blue Bull Gaming brand. He serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors across all three entities.Griffin was raised in Eastern North Carolina, the son of the late Accie and Evelyn Griffin of Hobgood, NC. One of twelve siblings, he played sports in high school and pursued an opportunity in professional baseball before it did not materialize. He spent years in customer service, learning what people needed from a business before he ever tried to run one. He entered the gaming industry as a participant and worked his way into operations, eventually reaching the executive level through accumulated experience rather than a credentialed path.He has spoken openly about the value of building at a measured pace, the importance of personal accountability in an emerging industry, and what it means to lead something you genuinely understand. Outside of work, Griffin plays golf, follows basketball and baseball, and draws. His membership at a local country club reflects a life organized around focus, competition, and the discipline of showing up prepared.

Q&A with Michael Griffin

What keeps you motivated when the work is hard?

Knowing what I built from. I did not come into this industry with a lot of advantages in the traditional sense. No degree, no connections, no roadmap. What I had was time, attention, and the willingness to learn how things actually worked before I tried to change them.When things are hard, I go back to that. The fact that the company exists, that it functions, that it has been through a pandemic and kept developing, that is not a small thing. It keeps me grounded when the day is difficult.

Where do you find inspiration in your day-to-day work?

In the details of the operation. I still pay attention to how the customer experience is working, how the product is being received, what is going right and what needs correction. There is something motivating about that level of contact with the actual work. You see progress in places that might not show up in a report.Golf has also been part of this. The structure of the game, the requirement for precision and patience, the way conditions change mid-round, those parallels show up in how I think about running the company.

How have you built confidence over time?

Mostly by being wrong and continuing anyway. I did not know everything about running a gaming operation when I took the CEO role. I knew a lot about the customer side and a lot about what the industry felt like from within it. But leading the business was something I had to learn while doing it.Confidence did not come from certainty. It came from getting through things I was not sure I could handle and then looking back and realizing I had handled them. The pandemic period did that for me in a real way.

What role has risk played in your path?

Every significant move I made was a risk. Leaving customer service for a full-time focus on the gaming side. Taking the CEO position. Building through COVID. Expanding the digital footprint. None of those felt safe at the time.What I have learned is that the risk that comes from inaction is often larger than the risk of moving forward carefully. I did not take reckless risks. I took calculated ones, and I tried to build the infrastructure to support them before I committed.

What has resilience looked like for you?

Staying in the work when the results were not there yet. The early part of building anything is mostly invisible. You are putting in the effort and not seeing the outcome. Resilience, for me, is the ability to do that without losing the belief that the work is worth doing.I also think resilience requires knowing your own limits. I knew when I needed to slow down, and I knew when I needed to push through. Getting that balance right over time is its own kind of discipline.

What doubts have you had to work through?

Whether the timing was right for the market I was building in. Skill-based gaming in North Carolina is not a fully developed industry. There are regulatory questions, consumer perception challenges, and competitive dynamics that are still taking shape. I have had moments of wondering whether I was building ahead of where the market was ready to go.What I came back to was the belief that someone needs to be building the infrastructure for what comes next. If not now, when? That question has pushed me through most of the moments of doubt.

How do you think about the impact of your work?

In terms of what it demonstrates about what is possible. I grew up in a small town in Eastern North Carolina. I do not have a college degree. I started in an industry as a customer, not as an executive. The fact that I am in the position I am in now is not just personal, it is a statement about the kind of path that is available to people who are willing to do the work.If someone sees what I have built and thinks differently about what they are capable of, that matters to me.

What do you want the long-term legacy of National Business Center to be?

A company that proved the model works. Skill-based gaming, built responsibly, with a real understanding of the customer experience, can operate successfully in markets that people do not think of as gaming markets.I want National Business Center, Vegas-Style, and Blue Bull to be known for doing this the right way. Not the fastest way, not the most aggressive way, but the way that holds. That is the legacy I am building toward.