(Dec 23): Bet365 Group Ltd founder Denise Coates was paid roughly £287 million (US$388 million) in 2025, retaining her title as one of the world’s best-paid executives even as her gambling empire’s earnings slumped.
The online bookmaker’s majority shareholder and co-chief executive officer received roughly £183 million from dividends as well as £104 million in salary for the year through March, based on a UK registry filing published Tuesday. That marks the billionaire’s biggest total compensation package since 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A representative for the 58-year-old, who is the UK’s richest woman, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bet365 reported a pretax profit of £348.7 million from its gambling and sports business in its latest financial year, down by almost half from 12 months earlier, as the company continued to expand into territories including Brazil, Peru and Serbia. The closely held firm has also made an aggressive push in recent years to expand in North America following the US Supreme Court’s ruling allowing states to legalize sports betting.
Coates’ latest compensation means she has received more than £2.3 billion in salary and dividends over the past decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. She had a net worth before her latest pay details of about US$7.3 billion, making her the world’s 498th richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The median pay for the CEO of a FTSE 100 company is £4.2 million a year, according to research this year from the High Pay Centre think tank.
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Founded in the early 2000s in Stoke-on-Trent, England, Bet365’s business has benefited from the growing popularity of online sports betting. Coates trained as an accountant and took over a small chain of betting shops her father owned on the side. She became managing director of the business at the age of 22, and expanded the number of shops before deciding to move the business online.
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