Mum who’s a £200m sure bet as best-paid businesswoman
FEW would recognise Denise Coates, even in her home city. But she is Britain’s highestearning businesswoman and one of the wealthiest in the world. The 50-year-old runs online bookmaker Bet365 and took home nearly £200million in the latest financial year, double that of the previous year. The mother-of-five and chief executive, from Stoke-onTrent, started the business in a car park with her brother John. She said in a rare interview: “The public side does not come naturally to me. I’m not saying I’m a shrinking violet. I’m not. I’ve been bossy all my just I very much enjoy running the business.”
Ms Coates is worth an estimated £3.7billion and her family’s fortune of £5.5billion was listed at number 22 in this year’s Rich List, surpassing Sir Richard Branson’s £4.8billion.
She lives in a £1.5million home with her property director husband Richard and their children, four of whom are adopted.
Awarded a CBE in 2012, she is the majority stakeholder in the company. She earned £70million life. It’s actually more than pop star Taylor Swift. However, being a woman in the industry is not something she thinks about.
“It didn’t cross my mind,” she said. “I probably had a few meetings at first where I had to put somebody right but I knew my business so it wasn’t a problem.
“I just wanted to get on with making my business successful.
“I’ve never dwelled on the fact, or thought about the fact that I was a woman.”
Ms Coates went to a comprehensive school and spent weekends working as a cashier in what she described as a “small chain of pretty rubbish betting shops” owned by her father Peter, chairman of Stoke City FC.
She studied at Sheffield University, where she met her husband, and earned a first-class degree in econometrics.
From there she trained as an accountant in her father’s firm, where she started to notice the rise of online gambling websites.
Ms Coates said: “We mortgaged the betting shops and put it all online.”
The company now employs about 3,000 people and is the majority shareholder in Premier League Stoke City.