David Tomsic may not be a household name like his father-in-law, billionaire pub and pokies baron Bruce Mathieson, but he’s quietly accumulated a portfolio of gaming venues over the past 18 years that’s turned him into one of the country’s biggest publicans.

His latest acquisition, the Royal on Ninety-Nine in the Queensland outback town of Roma – purchased for about $7 million this week – takes his Black Rhino Group, which he runs with his wife Deborah Mathieson-Tomsic (the youngest of Bruce Mathieson’s two daughters) to over 40 venues spread across Victoria, South Australia and Queensland.