Bet365’s Denise Coates Takes Pay Cut to (a Paltry) £150 Million

Bet365’s Denise Coates Takes Pay Cut to (a Paltry) £150 Million

Britain's highest-earning woman, Bet365 CEO Denise Coates, reduced her salary by nearly 50% last year. However, the billionaire entrepreneur still earned £150 million (US$188 million) in salary and dividends, as stated in the company's most recent accounts. 

The salary reduction occurs even though profits for the online gambling giant have skyrocketed. Bet365’s earnings rose from £3.4 billion (US$4.2 billion) to £3.7 billion (US$4.7 billion) compared to the previous year. This resulted in a pretax profit of £596.3 million (US$ 748 million) in 2014, in contrast to a loss of £72.6 million (US$91 million) the previous year, mainly due to the expensive US expansion. 

Even with the loss in 2023, Coates managed to pay herself £270 million (US$339 million), although this fell significantly short of the £421 million (US$528 million) she reported in 2020. 

Wages Setting New Records 

That year, she was the highest-paid individual in British corporate history, making approximately £237,348 ($328,276) each hour based on an average work week of 38 hours. 

She might have been the highest-paid executive globally in 2020, a year when Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man at the time, took a modest salary of $80K. 

Elon Musk had a claim that year as well, but his salary with Tesla was linked to a perplexing performance-based incentives system that primarily included stock options, indicating he either made $700 million or nothing, based on perspective. 

Coates' most recent earnings have increased her total payments from Bet365 to approximately £2.5 billion (US$3.1 billion) throughout the last 15 years. Her critics argue that this is an outrageous sum of money, far more than anyone could possibly spend in a lifetime. 

Others point out that Coates has never attempted to move Bet365 offshore, unlike many of her rivals in the online gambling sector. 

Consequently, the firm is among the largest corporate contributors to the UK's tax revenue and the top employer in Stoke-on-Trent, England, the hometown of the Coates family. 

As a 51% owner of the company, Coates could reduce her tax burden by receiving most of her compensation as dividends, yet she opts not to. 

The organization additionally contributed £120 million (US$150 million) to the Denise Coates Foundation, a charitable entity focused on health and welfare, community advancement, medical research and innovation, education, training, arts, culture, and recovery from disasters. 

Modest Origins 

Coates established Bet365 with her sibling, John, in a temporary structure in Stoke nearly two decades back, converting a network of betting shops run by her father, Peter, into one of the largest online gambling firms globally. 

The Coates family ranked 20th on The Times of London’s list of richest Brits, boasting a total net worth of almost £7.5 billion (US$9.4 billion).