Bet365’s Coates family tops list of UK’s biggest taxpayers
Online betting empire’s founders contributed more than £480m to state coffers, according to The Sunday Times Tax List
Denise Coates and her family have comfortably come out top in The Sunday Times Tax List, with bet365’s owners contributing an estimated £481.7m to public finances.
This is the third consecutive year the Coates family (Denise, brother John and father Peter) has finished at the summit of the national newspaper’s rankings for billionaires’ tax payments.
According to The Sunday Times, that £481.7m would pay the salaries of 14,400 nurses, 13,160 secondary school teachers, or for the RAF to purchase eight F-35 jets.
While the Coates’ tax payment was down on the £573m handed over to HMRC in 2020, it was still nearly £200m more than the figure paid by the person in second position: hedge fund manager Chris Rokos.
Fred and Peter Done, the septuagenarian founders of online and retail betting operator Betfred, were in fifth spot after they paid an estimated £169.8m in tax.
Robert Watts, who compiled the list, said: “This is a stronger Tax List than last year’s – which will be good news for the chancellor. The total take is up by more than £500m.”
The total paid by the top 50 taxpayers was up by £510m year-on-year to £3.7bn, while the threshold to be included in the top 50 increased 16% to £15.2m.
According to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List, published in May 2021, the Coates family finished 17th on the roll call of the UK’s wealthiest individuals with an estimated net worth of £8.45bn.
This was a fall of one position on the 2020 rankings despite the net worth for the trio, who have a 93.3% stake in bet365 and own Stoke City football club, swelling by around £1.3bn.
Denise Coates has courted headlines over the years for her bumper pay packet; the 54-year-old paid herself £421m – or £1.2m a day – in salary and dividends last year, taking her earnings to more than £1bn in four years.
Bet365 launched more than 20 years ago from a portable building on a Stoke-on-Trent car park after Denise Coates secured a £15m loan against her father’s chain of betting shops.
Today, customers bet around £2,000 each second on the privately owned operator’s websites and apps.