Bet365 boss gets another pay hike

Denise Coates, the co-founder of Bet365 and currently its director, has received another raise in salary. With this his annual salary has risen to £265m including dividends. She is easily the best paid boss in the UK.

The privately held company is owned jointly by Ms Coates and members of her direct family, including her brother John who is joint chief executive and her father Peter, the firm’s chairman. Last year Ms Coates’ pay and dividends were reported to total £217m.

In the year to the end of March her basic pay rose from £199m to £220m. The firm paid out £90m in dividends in the same year, half of which are thought to have gone to Ms Coates, as the owner of half of Bet365’s shares.

Ms Coates earned a first class degree in econometrics—the application of statistical methods to economic data—from Sheffield University before joining the High Street betting firm, run by her father.

She identified the potential of online gambling in 2000 and invested in the domain name Bet365.com so that she could drive the family business in that direction.

Bet365, now the largest private sector employer in Stoke, has millions of customers worldwide. It offers sports betting, poker, casino, games and bingo. The accounts showed that the firm’s revenues grew by 25 per cent in the year to the end of March and operating profit was up by 31 per cent.