Yahoo Finance Billionaire betting queen Denise Coates nets £265m payout for year’s work
ONLINE betting queen Denise Coates landed another staggering payday on Wednesday as the latest figures from her bet365 empire revealed a £265 million payout last year.
The billionaire founder of the Stoke-on-Trent firm, which she started nearly 20 years ago, picked up £220 million in pay last year, according to the accounts of the privately owned bookmaker.
On top of that Coates who owns half the business, banked £45 million of the £90 million paid out in dividends in the year to March 25. Her total pay is almost £50 million more than last year.
It makes her easily the UK’s richest businesswoman, comfortably outstripping the estimated £720 million wealth of PartyPoker founder Ruth Parasol.
The results underlined the rise of bet365 into one of the world’s biggest online bookmakers.
Pre-tax profits jumped 28% to £660.6 million and would have been higher without a £21 million loss at Stoke City, relegated from the Premier League in May.
Coates’s brother and co-chief executive John is also a billionaire and a director along with their father, Peter. The Coates family bought Stoke in 2006.
Accountant and bookmaking veteran Will Roseff has a 7% stake. Between them the quartet got £321.6 million last year, £39 million more than the year before.
John Coates said he was “pleased” with the financial results.
Overall pay for directors and key managers jumped from £321.9 million to £448.6 million.
Bet365 employs 4000 staff and took £52.6 billion in wagers in the year to March 25, up 12% on the previous year. It was bolstered by the boom in “in-play” betting and increased its casino games offering, while benefiting from favourable sporting results.
It moved into the liberalised US sports betting market last week, investing $50 million in Nasdaq-listed Empire Resorts, where it is the second-biggest shareholder.
The firm, which has no betting shops, avoided the row over controversial betting machines but the industry is under fire over its impact on society. Gambling Commission figures today suggest 450,000 children under 16 bet regularly, with 50,000 having a gambling problem. Bet365 said today it was determined to build effective safeguards to prevent problem gambling.
