- Denise Coates has the highest known salary of any British CEO.
- Coates, the founder of Bet365, took home more than $648 million in 2020.
- She also took home an additional $66 million in dividends.
LAS VEGAS - Bet365 CEO Denise Coates has become the highest-paid person in British corporation history.
The founder of Bet365 took home $648 million in salary in 2020, which shattered the previous record of $383 million. That previous record was also held by Coates, of course, who has been the highest-paid executive in the United Kingdom for four years running now.
Just her salary would give her that qualification in 2020, but as an owner of Bet365 - she owns 50.1% of the company - she also took home more than $66 million in dividends.
This is genuinely intriguing, as the online gambling industry was hit hard for at least part of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seeing such an explosion in CEO compensation is hard to understand at first glance, and could reflect that the sportsbooks believe they have weathered the storm.
As live sporting events began to start back up around the world amidst the pandemic, the sportsbooks saw record betting numbers.
UFC 249, for example, shattered betting records as the online betting community hungrily devoured any chance to wager on live sports.
The fact that a sports betting CEO is taking home the highest pay in the United Kingdom is fairly notable and could reflect this turn of events.
This is not to say that Coates is the richest person in the world, or even the country, simply that she has the highest on-record salary for 2020.
When dealing with money in this degree, valuations of assets and ownership become as important - or more important - than salary itself. What this could mean, however, is that Bet365 feels comfortable giving out a generous compensation package because they made it through the pandemic in one piece.
With vaccine rollouts happening across the globe, and sports all but entirely back, the sports betting world has started to exhale.