The Story of Denise Coates, the World’s Best-Paid Female Boss

As Bill Gates once said, “To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.” Denise Coates, founder of Bet365 and one of the most influential figures in the online gambling industry, has lived by this principle. As a UK technology entrepreneur and digital gaming pioneer, she saw an opportunity in internet-based betting platforms and went all in, risking everything she had. Starting from a temporary building in a car park, she built what would become a global online betting business, transforming Bet365 into a digital gambling powerhouse.

Today, Bet365 is one of the world’s leading online gambling companies, serving more than 45 million active users worldwide and earning multiple gaming industry awards over the past decade. The company is widely recognised for its sports betting innovation and online casino platforms, and as a pioneer of mobile gambling technology. Bet365 was among the first iGaming operators to introduce live in-play betting, 24/7 customer support, mobile compatibility, and an integrated offering of online casino games, bingo, and poker, setting new standards for the global digital entertainment and betting sector.

It’s safe to say that Denise knows the betting industry well, as she comes from third-generation bookmakers and learned the business from her parents and grandparents. She was still at school when she first started working as a cashier in her father’s bookmaking firm, Provincial Racing. 

From school she went on to study at the University of Sheffield, where she earned a degree in econometrics, and shortly after decided to receive further training in accounting – something she says was a helpful choice for her career. Impressed with her skills and work ethics, her father eventually offered Denise the opportunity to take over the small chain of shops, which is how she became managing director of the company in 1995. 

One of her colleagues, Debbie Tatton, remembers that, “When Denise came, she wanted a closer relationship between the staff and the customers. We became a lot more professional, a lot more customer-focused. A lot of younger people started coming in, as well as a lot more ladies.”

And then things got really interesting. As the millennium approached, Denise began to suspect that the Internet could drastically change the future of sports betting. Sensing an opportunity to be on the front line of something big and to grow the family business, she decided to make a move.

First, Denise convinced her brother, John Coates, to join the company. At that time, he had studied law and was working as an attorney. But Denise, as John remembers, “Just kept saying: ‘This is what we’re going to do; this is what we’re going to do.’ The Internet was there, and she just felt sports betting was the thing.”

In January 2000, she bought the 365.com domain from eBay for $25,000. However, to properly develop and launch the site, the company needed money. Denise approached several venture capitalists in London, but, unfortunately, not a single investor believed in her vision at that time. 

Continuing to search for investment, Denise eventually turned to her father, other family members and the Royal Bank of Scotland, which granted a loan of more than $18 million. However, she had to put the family’s betting shops down as collateral. “We mortgaged the betting shops and put it all into online,” Denise remembers. “We knew the industry required big startup costs but… we gambled everything on it. We were the ultimate gamblers if you like.”

Finally, the site went live in March 2001, and Denise was determined to make it work. To ensure the interest in the brand, she had multiple strategies in place and worked 24/7, just like the website. “You start a 24/7 business and you work 24/7. When you’re not in the office, you take calls in the middle of the night, regularly – that’s how the early days were. I’ve worked harder than you can possibly imagine. In the last couple of years, life has normalised… the impact on my life now is very different,” she noted.

The hard work paid off in just four years. In 2005, Denise and her family were able to repay the Royal Bank of Scotland for their initial loan. By 2013, Bet365 was generating more than $187 million in profits, turning Denise and her father into billionaires and cementing her status as one of the most powerful business leaders in the UK. That trajectory has only continued, as seen in Denise Coates’s £260 Million Payday A Deep Dive into Bet365’s Record-Breaking Payout, which highlights her extraordinary £260 million compensation for the 2024–25 financial year, underscoring the scale and profitability of the Bet365 empire she built.

Today, Denise is acknowledged as being one of Britain’s most talented entrepreneurs of her generation, the best-paid female executive in the world, and the UK’s most successful self-made businesswoman. She is also the only woman among the UK-based billionaires in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which includes Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and Joe Lewis, owner of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. 

Proof of this standing is easily seen from the numbers. In 2019, she pocketed an impressive sum of $422 million in salary and dividends, representing an even more impressive 26% jump from the $287 million earned the previous year. 

Denise’s salary breaks down to $928,000 per day. As a point of comparison, her annual salary is more than 9,500 times greater than the average UK salary and 2,000 times greater than that paid to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to CEO Magazine. As of December 2019, her net worth is estimated at $12.2 billion.

Since the very beginning of her career, Denise has remained unchanged. She rarely gives interviews, is very protective of her privacy and keeps her public appearances to a minimum. She always declines to discuss her interests beyond work, with the closest she came to discussing her personal life being a comment that, “My family is what’s important to me,” adding that the public persona does not come naturally to her: “I really don’t enjoy the attention. I’m not saying I’m a shrinking violet. I’m not. I’ve been bossy all my life. It’s just I very much enjoy actually running the business.”

Perhaps the only thing that gives her away on the streets is her personalised Aston Martin. Other than that, she spends the majority of her time thinking about the little details that can improve her company, whilst quietly living in a farmhouse in Cheshire with her husband and their five children.