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.

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 9,500 times the average UK annual salary of £25,971.

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

Meet Denise Coates, the business phenomenon behind bet365 (Members' Club)

Also included in The Sunday Times Tax List were brothers Fred and Peter Done, founders of Betfred, who paid an estimated £170m in tax last year and were fifth on the list behind JD Sports owner Stephen Rubin and the Weston family.

Of the £170m, £55.1m was accounted for by Betfred's betting duty, £38.1m by machine gaming duty and £8.4m by statutory betting levy.

The total paid by the top 50 British taxpayers rose from £3.2bn to £3.7bn, with the minimum payment required to make the list rising by 16 per cent to £15.2m.

Read this next:

UK's biggest taxpayer Denise Coates earned £470 million from bet365 in 2019-20

If you are concerned about your gambling and are worried you may have a problem, click here to find advice on how you can receive help