Britain's 'best paid woman', Bet365 boss Denise Coates, took home more than £260 million in salary and dividends in the 🤑 year to March 2024, according to the company accounts.
The accounts, published yesterday, reveal the betting firm's highest-paid director - believed 🤑 to be Coates - received remuneration of £213 million for the year, but is less than the £250m awarded the 🤑 previous year.
As the company's majority shareholder, Coates, 55, is entitled to at least half of the £100m dividend for the 🤑 year.
Coates featured on this year's Sunday Times rich list as being 'thought to have a higher salary than anyone else 🤑 in the UK' - with her family's fortunes placing them in the top 20.
Her latest earnings mean she is still 🤑 believed to be Britain's 'best paid woman' despite a drop of around £37 million compared with the year before.
Bet365 boss 🤑 Denise Coates was paid more than £260 million in salary and dividends in the year to March 2024, according to 🤑 the company accounts
Ms Coates, one of Britain's richest women, founded the online gambling company in the early 2000s in Stoke-on-Trent 🤑 after spotting the potential of internet betting to revolutionise the industry. Pictured, in 2012 Mrs Coates was awarded a CBE
Last 🤑 year, Coates company accounts revealed that she took a £170m pay cut, accounts reveal - but still earned nearly £300m 🤑 last year.
The betting chief's salary fell from £421m to £250m in the financial year to March 28, 2024, as the 🤑 pandemic stalled growth at the gambling giant, but she also received a share of more than 50 per cent of 🤑 the company's £97.5 million dividend.
It is thought she has reaped more than £1bn in salary and dividend from Bet365 within 🤑 the last three years.
In the latest financial year, accounts show Bet365's profits have dropped.
It made a profit before tax of 🤑 £49.8m for the year (after a £26.2m loss from its ownership of Stoke City Football Club), significantly less than the 🤑 £469m profit reported in the previous year.
Coates, a former University of Sheffield student who graduated with a first class degree, 🤑 built the company into one of the biggest gambling firms from her father Peter's Stoke-on-Trent bookmaking business.
After buying the domain 🤑 name bet365 on eBay in 2001 for around £2,000, she began operating a dot betting business from a portable cabin 🤑 in Stoke.
Coates completed the move from the Portakabin office, borrowing £15m from the Royal Bank of Scotland secured on her 🤑 family's estate of betting shops.
She is now the majority shareholder in Bet365, a global company which reported d launches in 🤑 Buenos Aires, Argentina, the Netherlands, and in Colorado and Ontario in North America.
Along with her father, Peter, and brother, John, 🤑 the family are among the UK’s richest people, with a fortune jointly worth £8.6bn in May 2024, according to the 🤑 Sunday Times Rich List.
The betting firm's HQ employs thousands in Stoke, with the company's employee numbers rising to almost 6,100, 🤑 up from 5,400 the year before.
Mrs Coates and her husband Richard Smith remain fiercely private and refuse to discuss their 🤑 private lives, or backgrounds.
The pair set up a charitable foundation in 2012 funding a variety of worthy causes at home 🤑 and overseas.
It provides bursaries for less well-off students, supports a hospice for cancer sufferers and has helped victims of natural 🤑 disasters.
They have one child of their own and adopted four girls from the same family.
Denise (left) along with her father, 🤑 Peter (right), and brother, John (left), are among the UK’s richest people, with a fortune jointly worth £8.6bn in May 🤑 2024, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Pictured: April 2024, the properly was well underway and could be seen being 🤑 built
Farmer Edward Colcough said he would never sell his farm, which has always been in his family
Edward Colclough rebuffed Denise 🤑 Coates's efforts to snap up his property in Cheshire as it backs onto her planned huge estate
An artist's impression of 🤑 how the palatial home of Mrs Coates will look once completed
Last year, a farmer revealed how he turned down a 🤑 'silly money' deal to buy his land by Coates for her space-age mansion.
Edward Colclough rebuffed efforts by the betting queen 🤑 to snap up his property in Cheshire as it backs onto her planned huge estate.
But although he said he would 🤑 not sell, he wished her well as his neighbour and said he was looking forward to getting on with her.
Private 🤑 Denise had been buying up neighbours' houses and land to expand her space-age home nicknamed 'Tesco Extra' by locals.
Mr Colcough 🤑 refused to be drawn on whether a formal offer had been made to him.
Last year he told MailOnline: 'This farm 🤑 has been in my family for years. We're not for sale.'
Bet365 have been contacted for a comment.
