The owners of sportsbook bet365 are living proof that gambling pays (for bookmakers at least) after maintaining a spot in the top 20 of the UK’s respected Sunday Times Rich List despite the ongoing pandemic.
Denise, John and Peter Coates, who founded their business from a portable office in the small UK city of Stoke, had a combined wealth of $11.99billion (£8.448billion) when the 2021 list was revealed Friday.
Bet365 owners #17 on rich list
That figure is an increase of $1.82billion (£1.282billion) during the last 12 months – despite the impact of the pandemic on global sport. And it was good enough for #17 on the list.
The forecasts for bookmakers was gloomy during the initial onset of COVID-19, with live sport being paused during the first wave of cases. Publicly quoted gambling companies saw their stock valuations nosedive before coming back strong later in the year.
And clearly since last summer, when major leagues started to tiptoe back into action, the pandemic has not had a major impact on sports betting.
A major global player
Bet365 is one of the world’s leading – if not the leading – online bookmakers with a purely digital operation. It has already moved to start building a U.S. user base and is already operational in New Jersey, New York and Colorado.
Denise Coates had already hit the headlines in 2021, as she took home an eye-popping salary of $582million last year. She also benefited by a further $66million from dividends from the company’s success.
Bet365 has been incredibly smart in building its operation. It famous has a very small and respected group of decision makers, and its advertising campaigns have been hugely successful.
It has also been highly successful in the way it has built relationships with successful affiliates in many key global markets. Effectively hoovering up some of the richest sources of gambling customers around.