bet365 Wikipedia
Denise Coates, founder and joint CEO of bet365, received a CBE in the 2012 Queen’s new year honours list for services to the community and business. The platform joined the official list of operators approved by the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting of the Ministry of Finance in February 2025, following the approval of the sports betting regulatory framework in the country. Her brother John, co-chief executive, runs the business alongside her, with their father Peter serving as chairman. Its product offering includes sports betting, online casino, online poker, and online bingo. Several other cases of bet365 refusing to pay winnings have been reported by gamblers on Internet gambling forums.
Denise was again criticised in 2024, after she received payouts of more than £270 million the year before, including a salary of £220.7 million and dividends of £50 million, despite the company posting a £60 million loss. Denise Coates became the highest paid executive in the UK in 2017, awarding herself a salary of £217 million. India’s consumer affairs ministry served notices to various television channels and apps for promoting gambling companies and asked them to stop showing ads from bet365 and other betting platforms immediately. In October 2014, The Guardian newspaper reported that the company had been taking bets from Chinese citizens by using obscure domain names in order to avoid government web censorship. Bet365 was also ranked as one of the fastest growing privately owned technology, media and telecoms companies in The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 league table. Bet365 ranked third in The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 league table, which ranks private companies in the UK based on profit growth rate.
The initiative was welcomed by a harm reduction group, but also received criticism for its perceived inadequacy; one MP described it as “a bribe to appease campaigners and the UK government”. In April 2016, the company became the new title sponsors for the club’s stadium for the next six seasons, replacing fellow local enterprise the Britannia Building Society. Bet365 chairman Peter Coates was also the chairman at Stoke City and in May 2012 bet365 signed a three-year contract with the club to become shirt sponsors.
EGaming Review magazine has ranked bet365 the number one Internet gaming company in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as part of its annual Power 50 list of the top 50 most influential Internet gaming companies. The bet365.fr website went live on 26 May 2026, after the company secured a triple licence from the French gambling regulator Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ), covering sports betting, horse race betting and online poker. In the summer of 2019, the largest UK bookmakers and online casino operators William Hill, GVC Holdings, Flutter Entertainment, Stars Group and bet365 entered into an agreement to transfer funds to combat gambling addiction. Denise developed a sports betting platform and trading team to launch the business online in March 2001. In January 2019, bet365 ranked second on The Sunday Times list of the UK’s top taxpayers, with the Coates family (Denise, John and Peter) paying an estimated total tax of £156 million, of which £99 million was paid by Denise alone. In 2018, her pay rose to £265 million as the company reported profits up 31% to £660 million, prompting criticism from problem gambling charity groups.
It was founded by Denise Coates, who remains the majority shareholder and joint-chief executive, alongside her brother John Coates. The company sponsors the shirt and stadium of EFL Championship football club Stoke City F.C., a corporate affiliate. In August 2024, the New Jersey non gamstop betting sites Division of Gaming Enforcement ordered that the company was required to pay more than $519,000 to customers it had shorted on payments. The company refused a payout of £54,000 to a customer in England in 2016, a case which was still ongoing in 2017. Although gambling is illegal in most jurisdictions of India, bet365 nonetheless conducted surrogate advertising in the country.
In May 2026, bet365 launched in France, becoming the first major international operator to enter the French regulated market since its opening to competition in 2010. The company would later announce in September 2021 that bet365 will launch in Colorado with a licensing and revenue share deal with Century Casinos. Denise Coates had received at least £280 million in salaries and dividends in 2025, making her the highest-paid woman in Britain. Their business operations are conducted from its headquarters in Stoke-on-Trent, alongside further offices in Manchester, Gibraltar, Malta, United States, Bulgaria, Brazil, Colombia and Australia.
The launch took place ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, scheduled to begin on 11 June 2026. In March 2025, the company announced it was ceasing its services in China and other jurisdictions. In Brazil, the company established legal representation through a subsidiary, HS do Brasil Ltda. Bet365’s reported figures for the 2020 financial year showed revenues of £2.8 billion and a profit of £470 million before tax.
Bet365 sold its betting shop chain in 2005 for £40 million to Coral and paid off its loan to RBS. The business borrowed £15 million from Royal Bank of Scotland against the family’s betting shop estate which had been started by Peter Coates in 1974 and had been run by Denise Coates as managing director from 1995.
