From humble portakabin in a car park to Queen of Stoke-on-Trent, once again it’s a very merry £260 million Christmas for bet365 boss Denise Coates, Britain’s richest woman – and highest female taxpayer.
The reclusive Coates–who very sensibly declines to give media interviews– founded iGaming giant bet365 with her brother John Coates in 2000, building on the relatively modest legacy of her father Peter’s betting shop in the Potteries.
Last year Denise, aged 58, a graduate of the University of Sheffield University, and mother of five children, four of them adopted from the same family, was paid a total of £260 million (US$351.47m) in salary and dividends.
Face of British Betting
Married to Peter Smith, she lives in a £90 million Cheshire mansion and, crucially, is happy to pay her taxes. No fiscal exile in Dubai for this woman, who has been awarded a CBE for her charity work and who has emerged as the acceptable face of British betting.
According to latest bet365 company accounts, Coates was paid a salary of £104 million in 2024, while £313.6 million was also distributed in dividends to Coates family shareholders, half of the bonus going to Denise.
Coates has now earned some £2.7 billion (US$3.64bn) from bet365 since 2010.
Possible £9bn Sale
Last year bet365–the biggest employer in the British Midlands town and surrounding area of Stoke-on-Trent, with major offices also in Manchester, Malta, the U.S. and Australia–paid £481.5 million (US$650.64m) in taxes to the UK Treasury in 2025.
The company, which pioneered in-play betting as it caught the wave and zeitgeist of online digital gambling, also contributed £137.8 million (US$186.19m) to charitable causes through the Denise Coates Foundation.
Earlier this year unsubstantiated reports in the UK media claimed that bet365, currently valued at £9 billion (US$12.16bn) was exploring a possible sale to undisclosed suitors.
If there is one area that has escaped the Coates “Midas touch” it must be Stoke City Football Club, a club that once enjoyed top league security but which now remains anchored in second tier EFL Championship mediocrity – despite the millions that come with the ownership and billions of the Coates family fortune.
