Denise Coates
Denise Coates | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 26, 1967 United Kingdom |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, business executive |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Known for | Founder and majority shareholder of bet365 |
Denise Coates (born 26 September 1967) is a British billionaire entrepreneur, who founded and remains the majority shareholder and joint chief executive officer of the online gambling enterprise bet365.
As of July 2023, her net worth was valued by Forbes at $7.7 billion. In 2020, Coates received a salary totaling £422 million along with dividends amounting to £48 million. She has consistently been the UK’s highest-earning CEO for multiple years and features prominently among the wealthiest women in Britain, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
By December 2024, her estimated net worth had risen to £9.5 billion.
Early life
Denise Coates is the eldest child of Peter Coates, who serves as chairman of Stoke City F.C. and is also a director at Bet365. She earned a first-class honours degree in econometrics from the University of Sheffield.
Business career
During her school years, Coates gained experience working in the cashier department at Provincial Racing, a bookmaker owned by her family. After completing university, she remained with the firm as an accountant and was appointed managing director of its small chain of shops in 1995. That same year, she arranged financing from Barclays to acquire a neighboring chain of betting shops.
Bet365
In January 2000, Coates secured ownership of the Bet365.com domain and launched the online betting platform a year later in 2001. The venture was initially funded by a £15 million loan from RBS, secured against the family’s portfolio of betting shops. In 2005, these physical shops were sold to Coral for £40 million, allowing Coates to clear the outstanding loan.
By 2016, Bet365 had grown into one of the largest global online gambling companies, producing revenues of $2 billion and handling bets totaling $45 billion annually. The company also maintains majority ownership of Stoke City Football Club. In 2015, Bet365 moved its headquarters from Stoke-on-Trent to Gibraltar to benefit from more favorable regulatory conditions. Denise Coates continues to co-manage the business alongside her brother and fellow co-CEO, John Coates.
She holds close to half of Bet365’s shares personally, with her wealth estimated at $5.2 billion as of December 2022.
In contrast to many ultra-wealthy individuals, Coates primarily draws income through salary rather than dividends. She was recognized as the highest-paid woman worldwide in 2018 and was Britain’s leading taxpayer between 2019 and 2022. Her remuneration attracted criticism in 2017 when she paid herself £217 million; this figure rose to £265 million in 2018—approximately 9,500 times the UK average salary—prompting further public debate. By 2020, her salary had escalated to £421 million, exceeding the combined pay of all FTSE 100 CEOs.
Denise Coates Foundation
The Bet365 Foundation was founded by Denise Coates in August 2012 and rebranded as the Denise Coates Foundation in February 2016. Registered as an English charity, it had donated £100 million across 20 UK-based charities by 2014. In response to the Ukraine crisis in 2022, it provided £1 million in aid to affected families.
Beneficiaries include organizations such as Oxfam, CAFOD, Douglas Macmillan Hospice in Stoke-on-Trent, and relief initiatives following Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The foundation also supports university scholarships and theatrical arts projects.
Significant contributions include £230,000 awarded to St Joseph's College in Trent Vale for programs assisting vulnerable youth in Sierra Leone and a £235,000 donation in 2020 to The New Vic Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme for renovation purposes.
In April 2020, Denise Coates donated £10 million through her foundation to University Hospitals of North Midlands to support healthcare workers battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Personal life
Coates is married to Richard Smith, and together they live in Betchton, close to Sandbach in Cheshire. She owns an Aston Martin that features personalized license plates displaying her initials.
The couple has five children, with reports from 2014 indicating that four were "recently adopted from the same family."
Their residence is a £90 million estate in Cheshire, which includes an Olympic-size swimming pool, two helicopters, a bespoke water slide, tennis courts, a boathouse, and meticulously designed gardens.
Honours and awards
In January 2012, Coates was honored with the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in recognition of her contributions to business and community service. That same year, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Staffordshire University.
The following year, Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4 recognized her as one of the United Kingdom’s 100 most influential women.
In 2019, Coates was inducted into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame by the Sports Betting Community (SBC), acknowledging her significant leadership within the gambling sector.