Bet365 boss Denise Coates takes home £468m in one year

Denise Coates, 53, is one of the world's best-paid bosses and UK's richest woman

Denise Coates is the founder and chief executive officer of Bet365 Group. Getty Images

Denise Coates has hit the jackpot yet again.

Ms Coates, 53, the founder and chief executive officer of Bet365 Group, has taken £468.9 million ($648m) in pay and dividends, almost 50 per cent more than a year earlier, a filing from the online bookmaker showed.

Her salary of £421.2m from the closely held British company makes her one of the world’s best-paid bosses.

It also strengthens her status as the UK’s richest woman, adding to a fortune already among the world’s 500 largest, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.

Ms Coates has earned more than $1.5 billion over the past decade.

Founded about 20 years ago, Bet365’s business has benefited from the growing popularity of online sports betting.

The company, based in Stoke-on-Trent in England, company posted revenue of £2.8bn for the financial year that ended on March 29, 2020, an 8 per cent drop from a year earlier as the Covid-19 pandemic curbed sports.

Operating profit fell by more than half to £194.7m, partly due to Ms Coates’s salary increasing from £276.6m.

After graduating from Sheffield University with a degree in econometrics, she trained to become an accountant and took over a small chain of betting shops her father owned.

Ms Coates became managing director of the business at age 22 and expanded the number of shops before deciding to shift the business online.

She and her family also own Stoke City Football Club.

Ms Coates is the only woman among 17 UK billionaires on Bloomberg’s wealth index, which includes Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Joe Lewis, owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

She donated £10m towards the UK’s effort to fight Covid-19 last year, while Bet365 contributed £85m to her foundation in its latest accounts.

The Denise Coates Foundation had net assets of £337.8m at the end of March 2019, its latest filing shows.