The founder and joint chief executive of British online gambling group bet365 Denise Coates is the highest-paid director in the United Kingdom and probably the highest-paid female chief executive in the world. In an annual report, the company revealed that Coates had received £265 million in salary and dividends in 2017 following a pay rise of £48 million from the previous year.
The 51-years-old gambling mogul started the online business in 2001 as sports betting platform that transformed her father Peter Coates’ chain of betting shops. Today, she continues to run bet365 as the majority shareholder, although too little is publicly known about her. Until now, the company has never shared information about the salaries it paid to its employees, but this year, it was obliged to reveal the exact amount of money it paid to its founder.
In bet365’s financial statement released this week, figures show that Denise Coates earned £220 million as salary in the year to March 25. In addition, she received a £45 million dividend as a result from her 50.01 per cent stake in the company, which is not listed on the stock market. In the previous fiscal year, her pay package was £217 but it jumped by around £48 million to £265 million due to a company decision for a rise in salaries. Over the past two years, Miss Coates was paid approximately £482 million from the gambling giant, the company’s accounts filed with Companies House show.
According to media reports that make comparisons between her and Prime Minister Theresa May, the hidden Queen of Gambling receives more than 1,700 times the annual salary of the British politician who is now facing huge criticism over the Brexit deal. Miss Coates also earns more than 9,500 times the average salary in the UK. According to Forbes, her total wealth in 2018 is around US$4.1 billion. Earlier this month, British house-building company Persimmon Plc rewarded its CEO Jeff Fairburn, who has since stepped down from the position, with a £75 million bonus. The payment was way over £100 million initially but was decreased after the shocking news caused public outrage.
Who Is Denise Coates?
Denise Coates, the eldest daughter of Peter Coates, is a 51-year-old businesswoman and billionaire who studied econometrics at the University of Sheffield. Her career started humbly in the cashiers’ department in the family bookmaking firm, Provincial Racing. After marking bets in her father’s betting shops, she moved to train for an accountant and soon became responsible for several shops. She then acquired another chain and in 1995, Miss Coates took the position of a managing director of her father’s betting business.
In 2000-2001, she launched the betting site bet365 after borrowing £15 million from RBS. The betting shop estate was sold to Coral in a £40 million deal, while the online platform continued to grow and generate high revenues. Today, Denise Coates is a co-executive of bet365 along with her brother Peter Coates, while her father is the chairman. The gambling site, which has become one of the largest gambling groups in the world with a revenue of £2.3 billion in 2017, has the majority stake in Stoke City Football Club.
In 2012, Denise Coates was awarded a CBE and a year later, she was named as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman’s Hour at BBC Radio 4. In 2017, she became the highest-paid boss in the UK after paying herself a £217 million annual salary for the 2016/2017 fiscal year. While this fact and her £48 million pay rise this year created much controversy considering the alarming news that 125,000 children aged between 11 and 16 in the UK are problem gamblers, in reality, Miss Coates is a self-made billionaire.
Her father, Stoke City chairman Peter Coates, is also the son of a miner and the youngest of 14 children. Over the past several decades, the working-class family has slowly and quietly risen to become one of the most affluent families in the country with a gambling business that took over a large part of the world.
- Author
Olivia Cole
