Bet365 Founder Denise Coates Tops UK Taxpayer List with £482M Paid to Exchequer

Denise Coates, billionaire and founder of bet365, topped the British taxpayer list for the third year in a row after paying an estimated £481.7 million in 2020-21.

Founder of bet365 in 2000, Coates ranks as the 17th richest person in the country and paid herself £421m last year in her role as chief executive of the online gambling business.

Despite paying approximately £91m less in tax than in 2020, the Coates family topped the list with a figure almost £200m more than second-placed hedge fund manager Chris Rokos, who paid £300 million to the exchequer.

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Only one name from the top ten on The Sunday Times Rich List – the tenth-placed Weston family with a fortune of £11bn – figured among the top ten taxpayers.

Coates, 54, who has an estimated total fortune of £8.4 billion, has earned approximately £1.6 billion since 2016, collecting a pay check more than 9500 times the average UK annual salary of £25,971.

She owns just over half the shares in bet365, with a combined stake of 91% when including her brother John, who serves as co-chief executive, and husband Richard Smith.