Bet365 boss Denise Coates’ pay nearly halved to £150mn last year

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Bet365 chief Denise Coates saw her annual pay from the family gaming empire almost halve to £150m last year, a payday that still cements her position as one of Britain’s richest bosses.

Coates, the company’s top earner, was paid £95m in the year ending March 2024, according to accounts filed at Companies House, down. 221 million pounds in the previous year.

In addition, it owed more than half of the dividends paid by the UK-based group, which equates to more than £55m of the £110m for the year, up from £100m the previous year.

In total, that means Coates was paid around £150m, up from the £270m he took in wages and dividends last year.

The latest accounts show Coates was paid more than £2.5 billion over the past 15 years, according to Company House filings, for his role in overseeing the rapid growth and success of the family gambling empire, which still rests on them. In his hometown, Stoke-on-Trent.

Coates, an economics graduate from the University of Sheffield, convinced his father to mortgage his bookmaker network for the initial investment in temporary offices in Stoke in 2001. The high street chain was sold in 2005 to allow the business to focus purely on the booming online betting market :

Kates decided to keep the business in Stoke and run it as a family because more than half of the group is still owned by him, with another significant stake held by his brother John, who is joint chief executive.The couple, who rarely speak, say analysts and former employees with the press, still oversees most of the operations, development, legal and financial affairs.

The group is the largest employer in the Stoke area and one of the largest private companies paying corporation tax, although many rivals have based their operations offshore.

Bet365’s accounts show that £120m was donated to the Denise Coates Foundation, a registered charity, in the last financial year, up from £100m the previous year.

The group reported a pre-tax profit of £596.3m, compared with a loss of £72.6m last year, as it expanded in regions such as North America.Revenues rose 9% to £3.7bn in 2024 in March.

During the year, the company said it acquired licenses in new markets with “commercially viable regulations,” granted licenses in several US states, and “further resources have been committed to further expand our footprint in both North and South America.”

The group was the majority owner of Stoke City Football Club, which made a loss of £30.3m in 2023, up from a loss of £12.4m in 2023. However, the accounts show that it demerged July 2024, controlling interest now held by John Coates, Denise Coates brother