Despite reducing her salary by about 40%, the founder and CEO of Bet365 Group, Denise Coates, remains unmatchable. The 54-year-old Coates received approximately £300 million ($400 million) as her annual salary and profit share for the year ending in March 2021, according to the company's disclosure filing on the London Stock Exchange, with her earnings surpassing $1 billion over the past two years. Sources told Bloomberg that Coates's salary of £249.6 million makes her the highest-paid CEO worldwide, despite a 40% decrease from the previous year's amount of £469 million, as reported by "Al-Arabiya.net."
Coates is the richest woman in the UK after increasing her stake in the company, becoming the majority shareholder of Bet365 following her intensified stock purchases last year, which were originally owned by her father, Peter Coates. Bet365 was founded around two decades ago and benefited from the growing popularity of online sports betting. The company recorded revenues of £2.8 billion for the financial year ending March 28, 2021, showing little change from the previous year as the pandemic continued to affect sports betting due to postponed or canceled events.
Coates graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in econometrics, trained to become an accountant, and then took over a small chain of betting shops owned by her father. She became the company's director at the age of 22, increasing the number of shops before deciding to transition the business to online betting. Alongside Bet365, Coates and her family own Stoke City Football Club.
