Denise Coates, the billionaire founder and chief executive of Bet365, received at least £280 million in salary and dividends in the year to March 2025, despite a sharp fall in the company’s pre-tax profits.
The Stoke-on-Trent-based gambling group reported turnover of £4 billion for the year, up from £3.7 billion in the previous 12 months. Pre-tax profits, however, fell to £349 million from £627 million a year earlier, reflecting higher costs as the company reshaped its global operations.
Accounts filed on Tuesday show that Coates was paid a salary of £104 million. As the company’s majority shareholder, she is entitled to at least half of a £353.6 million dividend, bringing her total remuneration to a minimum of £280 million. While this is a significant rise from the £150 million she received last year, it remains below her record £469 million payout in 2021. Over her career, Coates has now extracted more than £2.5 billion in pay and dividends from Bet365, which she famously began building from a portable cabin in a Stoke-on-Trent car park.
The fall in profits was driven largely by a £325 million increase in expenses as Bet365 expanded its presence in the United States and South America while withdrawing from China, where online betting is illegal. The company also recorded £59 million in one-off restructuring and reorganisation costs linked to exiting certain markets. Bet365 said it did not fully cease taking bets from Chinese customers until the end of March, meaning some costs could spill into the current financial year.
Bet365 has long faced scrutiny over its activities in China, but it has consistently maintained compliance with local laws. Despite criticism of Coates’s pay, industry figures note that she does not use complex structures to reduce tax and is among the UK’s largest individual taxpayers. During the year, the Bet365 group also donated £130 million to the Denise Coates Foundation, which supports charitable causes.
In addition, the company waived loans to Stoke City, which was demerged from Bet365 and is now controlled by Coates’s brother, John. The accounts make no mention of earlier reports of potential talks over a £9 billion sale of the business. Instead, they highlight Bet365’s strategic focus on regulated markets, particularly the United States, where it now operates licensed betting services in 16 states after entering five new states during the year.
The US expansion follows the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to overturn the federal ban on sports betting, which triggered a rapid liberalisation of the American gambling market on a state-by-state basis. The move underscores Bet365’s aim to grow in regulated, high-potential markets while exiting jurisdictions where legal and regulatory challenges remain.
