Britain’s richest woman Denise Coates saw her pay rise by £7m to just over £220m last year, despite her family’s gambling empire Bet365 making a loss.
Ms Coates took home a total of £265m in salary and dividends from Bet365 last year, new account filings show.
The billionaire received £220.7m in salary, up from £213m a year earlier. She also gained from a dividend of around £45m, on par with the same payout last year.
Ms Coates is one of the world’s best paid executives and regularly tops the list as Britain’s best paid chief executives. She earns roughly £1m for every working day of the year before tax.
She has run Bet365 since it launched from a portakabin in Stoke 20 years ago. As well as the company’s founder and chief executive, she is Bet365’s majority owner.
Unlike other business owners who earn the majority of their wealth through dividends or share payouts, Ms Coates is paid a significant salary. The arrangement makes her liable for significantly more tax, with Ms Coates and her family paying an estimated £460m to HMRC last year.
Her brother, John, is also involved in the business and is a major shareholder. Her father, Peter, originally founded the company. The Coates family are worth over £8bn.
The Coates family are also significant backers of Stoke City FC. Bet365 is the majority shareholder in the club and Peter Coates is chairman.
The group also owns Stoke City’s Bet365 Stadium, which was originally known as the Britannia Stadium.
Ms Coates’ salary has held steady around a similar mark for the past three years after she faced criticism in 2020 for earning £421m in pay and £48m in dividends.
Bet365’s turnover for the year ending March 2023 grew to £3.4bn, up from £2.8bn a year earlier.
Betting on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was behind the rise, the company said.
However, the group lost £72.6m after making a “significant” investment in the US. It fell to a loss after recording a £49.8m profit in 2022.
Bet365 said: “Entering into new markets requires high initial investment, however the directors remain confident that these markets will deliver a significant contribution to the group in future periods.”
The company won a number of US gambling licences in the financial year, and now has a presence in states such as Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Kentucky and Louisiana.
Administrative costs, including IT spending, rose by more than £585m, while total pay at the group rose by 11pc after it hired an extra 1,500 people. The group now employs around 7,500 staff.
The company did not break down its sales by geography, saying it would be “severely prejudicial to the interests of the group.”
Questions have been raised about how much Bet365 makes from China.
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
