Denise Coates, chief executive of gambling company Bet365, took a huge pay cut last year but still received a package worth almost £158m.
Ms Coates, considered the highest-paid director of the Bet365 Group and one of the richest women in Britain, received a salary of £94.7 million in the year ending March 2024, up from £221 million. of pounds sterling from the previous year.
But it also received dividends of around £63m, according to company accounts.
Ms Coates is credited with the rapid rise of the Stoke-on-Trent gambling firm, which offers sports betting, poker, online casino games and online bingo to millions of customers around the world.
He became obsessed with the potential of online gambling 25 years ago, according to his brother John, co-chief executive of Bet365 and co-chairman of Stoke Metropolis football club, while working for the popular chain of local bookmakers.
After convincing her family to mortgage the business to finance and develop new software and setting up headquarters in a temporary building in a parking lot, she became a pioneer in the change and growth of online gambling.
The company’s growth has made it one of the largest online gambling websites in the world and the largest private sector employer in the Stoke area.
On Monday, the group reported a pre-tax profit of £596.3m for the year, compared with a loss of £72.6m a year earlier, when it was expanding into regions such as North America. .
The expansion appears to be paying off, with group revenue growing 9% to £3.7bn. The reduction in executive pay also helped profits.
Ms Coates has previously been described as one of the UK’s “most successful women” and is among the highest-paid executives in the world.
He gained a first-class degree in econometrics before training as an accountant at the company Aquainted.
The Coates family has a combined net worth of around £7.5bn, putting them in 20th position on last year’s Sunday Instances rich list.
However, news of his most recent salary deal drew some criticism. Luke Hildyard, chief executive of the Excessive Pay Centre, a think tank that tracks CEO pay, argued that Ms Coates’ pay was unfair.
“People deserve to be rewarded for their innovation and success, but there is a question of what is sensible and proportionate,” he said.
“No one becomes a billionaire isolated from society at large. In this case, wealth depends on the money that comes out of the players’ pockets and the efforts of thousands of employees.”
In November, the government announced that the amount of money people can place on a single bet on online slots will be restricted for the first time as part of a wider reform to tackle gambling addiction.
A limit of £5 per transfer will apply to all adults aged 25 and over.with a limit of £2 per transfer for 18-24 year olds.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will also introduce a legal tax on gambling companies to help fund addiction treatment.
He said the measures would allow people to “play safely”, but the betting industry’s main lobby group He said the government “ran the risk of losing perspective.”
