Denise Coates: University of Sheffield alumni and Bet365 boss paid £280m despite fall in profits
Billionaire Bet365 boss and University of Sheffield alumni Denise Coates was paid £280m this year despite her firm’s fall in profits.
Ms Coates, who is the UK’s highest paid woman, saw her pay deal soar over the past year, according to freshly-filed Companies House papers.
The billionaire boss, who runs the betting giant alongside her brother, received the bumper total pay deal despite weaker profits.
The University of Sheffield alumni, who graduated with a first-class degree in ‘Econometrics’ in the late 80s, received a salary of £104 million for the year to March 2025.
The accounts also show the business paid a £353.6 million dividend to shareholders - more than three times what it paid out a year earlier.
She will be eligible for at least half of this, or almost £177 million, as majority shareholder of the business.
Ms Coates therefore received at least £280 million for the year, representing a sharp rise from the roughly £159 million she got last year.
However, it also comes after she received a significant decrease in pay in 2024, when she received £158.8m in papers filed for March that year. That itself was down from £270.7m in 2023.
It takes her total pay and dividends to around £1.8 billion for the past eight years.
The increase comes after the group reported stronger revenues, which rose nine per cent to £4bn for the year, on the back of growth in both its sports and gaming operations.
However, the pay increase also came despite the group revealing that pre-tax profits slid to £338.5m from £596.3m a year earlier.
In May, the Guardian reported Ms Coates and her family were assessing a potential sale of the business which could value it at up to £9 billion.
Ms Coates, aged 57, was awarded a first-class degree in econometrics - the application of statistical methods to economic data - at Sheffield University before joining the High Street betting firm, run by her father.
However, the company, along with the rest of the industry, has faced scrutiny over the burden that problem gambling places on society.
In April last year Bet365 was fined more than £582,000 by the Gambling Commission ‘for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures’ at its online business.
In 2011, Denise Coates was awarded a CBE for services to the community and business.