07 January 2025 , 15:12
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Denise Coates, chief executive of the gambling firm Bet365, took a massive pay cut last year, but still received a package worth almost £158m.
Ms Coates, understood to be the highest-paid director of Bet365 Group and one of Britain’s wealthiest women, was paid a salary of £94.7m in the year ending March 2024, down from £221m the year before.
But she also received dividends of around £63m, according to company accounts.
Ms Coates has been credited with the rapid rise of the Stoke-on-Trent gambling firm, which offers sports betting, poker, casino games and bingo online to millions of customers worldwide.
She became fixated on the potential for online gambling 25 years ago, according to her brother John, who is co-chief executive of Bet365 and joint-chairman of Stoke City football club, while working for the family-run chain of local betting shops.
After persuading her family to mortgage the business to fund and develop new software and setting up headquarters in a temporary building in a car park, she became a pioneer in the shift and growth of online gambling.
The company’s growth has seen it become one of the world’s biggest online gambling websites and the largest private-sector employer in the Stoke area.
On Monday, the group reported a pre-tax profit of £596.3m for the year, compared with a loss of £72.6m the year before when it was expanding in regions such as North America.
The expansion appears to be paying off, with the group’s revenue growing by 9% to £3.7bn. Reduced executive pay also helped profits.
Ms Coates has previously been described as one of the UK’s "most successful women" and is among the best-paid executives in the world.
She achieved a first-class degree in econometrics before training as an accountant within the family firm.
The Coates family has a combined net worth of around £7.5bn, which put them in 20th position in last year’s Sunday Times Rich List.
However, news of her most recent pay settlement was met with some criticism. Luke Hildyard, executive director of the High Pay Centre, a think tank that tracks the pay of chief executives, argued Ms Coates’ pay was not fair.
"People deserve to be rewarded for innovation and success but there’s a question of what’s sensible and proportionate," he said.
"Nobody becomes a multi-billionaire in isolation from wider society. In this case, the wealth depends on money coming out of gamblers’ pockets, the efforts of thousands of staff."
In November, the government announced the amount of money people can place on a single online slots bet will be restricted for the first time as part of a wider overhaul to tackle gambling addiction.
A £5 per spin limit will apply to all adults aged 25 and over, with a £2 per spin limit for 18 to 24-year-olds.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is also set to introduce a statutory levy on gambling companies to help fund addiction treatment.
It said the measures would allow people to "gamble safely" but the betting industry’s main lobby group said the government was "at risk of losing perspective".