This week it was revealed that the founder of online betting firm bet365 paid herself £265 million last year, the highest payout ever for a British business executive.
Denise Coates took the giant payout, which comes as a base salary of £220,004,000 as well as a dividend payout of £45 million from the shares that she holds. The amount comes to more than £726,000 per day, and is more than 9,500 times the average UK salary. She made more than 27 times that of Apple's Tim Cook, and 1,700 times more than the UK Prime Minister.
The payout was criticized by some as being excessive, citing greed as the key reason she took the money from her company. For her part, Coates cited that revenues were up 25% and operating profit was up 31%.
Speaking about his disgust of the payout, High Pay Centre Director Luke Hildyard said, "Why does someone who is already a billionaire need to take such an obscene amount of money out of their company? It is difficult to find a reason beyond pure greed.
"A payment of this size would be impossible to justify for someone whose business was in unquestionably life-enhancing products or services. It is doubly offensive when awarded to a betting company CEO at a time when problem gambling is spiraling out of control."
Gaming addiction firm Addaction CEO Mike Dixon also spoke out about the payout, sharing: "It's astonishing that a CEO of one gambling company is paid 26 times more than the entire industry's contribution to [addiction] treatment. We know problem gambling affects more than 2 million people. We need a proper levy on gambling industry profits so more people can get help and support."
Denise Coates founded bet365 in 2000 and has seen it grow to a multi-billion pound online betting behemoth, of which her company controls 93%.
Comments
I guess you can do that if you control your own company. I don't know that it is any more or less obscene whether the money goes into her bank account or it stays in the company. I'm assuming she will have to pay a massive tax bill so good luck to her.
I'm loving the Scrooge McDuck picture! 😂
sharpe
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She's certainly been the driving force in turning bet365 into the gambling powerhouse it is today, so I'd argue she's deserving of being well remunerated.....but £265M is some serious remuneration!! I hope the employees of the business are also well looked after with big bonuses.
I do wonder though why one person needs that much money?
sharpe
When you earn that much it has gone well beyond the need category
sharpe
Hey...part of those are mine! Well they were anyway.. 😉
Well..I guess she don't have to make excuses for being so successful as founder and owner of the worlds sports betting leader..especially if that paycheck doesn't bother the company's daily operations...it would of look nicer if part of that goes for charity or support for gambling addiction programs though!