Coates takes pay cut as revenues stall

Denise Coates, Britain’s richest woman and the boss of Stoke-based Bet365, has taken a major pay cut as growth at the firm stuttered.

Coates’ salary dropped from £421m to £250m for the year ending March 31, during a year in which revenues remained flat at £2.8bn.

Bet365 was hit by the cancellation of a host of sporting events during the year, because of the pandemic as customers moved to other ways of gambling.

Despite this, the Coates family, which runs the Bet365 empire paid out £615m in taxes to HMRC, while charitable donations rose from £87m in 2020 to £103m last year.

Coates set up Bet365 with a £15m loan from RBS in 2001.