[imagesource:casino.org]

Stoke-on-Trent in England might not sound like the sort of place where billionaires romp, but this is where Denise Coates, the CEO and founder of Bet365 – a betting powerhouse – calls home.

Britain’s richest businesswoman started Bet365 in the early 2000s and has since attracted more than 90 million customers and earnings of £3.39 billion (R80 billion) in 2023.

Of this massive profit, Coates has been revealed to have earned more than £220.6 million (R5 billion) as the most senior director. Suck it, Zuck.

Even though the company’s primary sports and gaming operation lost more than £60 million (R1.4 billion) for the year, Coates’ 2023 take-home pay is higher than what she was paid last year.

As the company’s majority shareholder – with a stake of 58.3% – the CEO would have had a further boost in the region of £50 million (R1.8 billion), bringing her total compensation package to the eye-watering 2023 amount.

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Coates has received approximately £1.5 billion (R35 billion) in salary and dividends over the past decade. This means that Coates is earning more than her nation’s prime minister and a handful of Big Tech CEOs to boot. Not bad for a girl from Stoke-on-Trent.

While at school, Coates started work in the cashiers’ department of Provincial Racing, a bookmaking firm owned by her family. After leaving university, she continued to work at Provincial Racing, as an accountant and became managing director of a small chain of shops in 1995.

In January 2000, Coates purchased the domain name Bet365.com. Bet365.com was launched in 2001 as an online betting site after the business borrowed £15 million (R355 million) against the family’s betting shop estate. The gamble paid off, and in 2005 Coates managed to repay the debt in full.

As of July 2023, Forbes estimates Coates’s net worth at R148 billion.

[source:fortune]