Bet365 owner’s rewards make the mainstream media headlines

In a rather quiet weekend news-wise the UK media focussed on bet365’s recent annual results (see previous reports) and in particular the GBP 217 million salary of CEO and founder Denise Coates (50) and her GBP 18 million in dividend payments last year.

Whilst some anti-gambling activists were critical of her rewards for success, it should perhaps be remembered that during the year Coates also voluntarily dedicated GBP 50 million from bet365’s profits to her Foundation, which spends generously on problem gambling research and treatment initiatives.

Most media reports covered the fast rise of bet365 to a multi-billion sterling business from a humble portable office in a car park, where Coates built the enterprise after she and her family literally gambled all their assets on the future of the then nascent online gambling phenomenon.

The gamble paid off, and today bet365 is licensed in numerous regulatory jurisdictions around the world, employs 3,712 people, and in its last FY financial report to end March 2017 reported gambling handle up GBP 10 billion to GBP 47 billion, active players up 35 percent, revenue up 39 percent at GBP 2.15 billion, and profit up 15 percent at GBP 514 million.

Since those early days in 2001, and due mainly to Coates’s strategic planning and management talents, bet365 has become one of the world’s largest and most successful online gambling enterprises, enabling Coates and her family, who are the majority shareholders, to build a family fortune of around GBP 5 billion, most of it accruing to Denise Coates as CEO.

Related and similar