Bet365 Group Ltd (commonly known and stylized as bet365 and spoken as "bet three-six-five") is a leading British online
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
company based in the United Kingdom. It was founded by
Denise Coates
Denise Coates (born 26 September 1967) is a British billionaire businesswoman, the founder, majority shareholder and joint chief executive of online gambling company Bet365.
In October 2019, ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Coates's net worth at ...
, who remains the majority shareholder and joint-chief executive alongside her brother,
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
.
Overview
Bet365 is an online gambling company offering
sports betting
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. The frequency of sports bet upon varies by culture, with the vast majority of bets being placed on association football, American football, basket ...
and casino type games.
In addition to the company headquarters in
Stoke-on-Trent, Bet365 have further offices in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
,
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
,
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
and
Australia. The group employed over 4,000 people as of 2020.
Bet365 is a trading name of Hillside (New Media) Ltd. and operations including payments through the affiliate programme are carried out under that name.
History
Bet365 was founded in 2000 in a portable building
in Stoke-on-Trent by
Denise Coates
Denise Coates (born 26 September 1967) is a British billionaire businesswoman, the founder, majority shareholder and joint chief executive of online gambling company Bet365.
In October 2019, ''Forbes'' magazine estimated Coates's net worth at ...
. Denise developed a sports betting platform and trading team to launch the business online in March 2001. The business borrowed £15 million from
Royal Bank of Scotland against the family's betting shop estate which had been started by Peter Coates in 1974 and had been run by Denise Coates as managing director from 1995. Bet365 sold its betting shop chain in 2005 for £40 million to
Coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...
and paid off its loan to RBS.
Bet365 chairman
Peter Coates
Peter Coates (born 13 January 1938) is an English businessman, the co-founder of bet365, and the chairman of Stoke City Football Club. He has been listed as the 25th-richest person in British football. He founded Stadia Catering in the 1960s an ...
was also the chairman at
Stoke City and in May 2012 Bet365 signed a three-year contract with the club to become shirt sponsors. In April 2016, the company became the new title sponsors for the
club's stadium for the next six seasons, replacing fellow local enterprise the
Britannia Building Society
The Britannia Building Society was founded as the Leek & Moorlands Building Society in Leek in 1856. It expanded steadily as a regional society until the late 1950s when it began a major expansion drive, partly through branch openings but also so ...
. In the summer of 2016, Bet365 also signed shirt sponsorship deals with Bulgarian clubs
Ludogorets Razgrad and
Slavia Sofia
PFC Slavia Sofia ( bg, ПФК Славия София) is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia, which currently competes in the top tier of the Bulgarian football league system, the First League. Slavia's home groun ...
for the upcoming two seasons.
Bet365's reported figures (March 2020-21) showed revenues of £2.8 billion and a profit of £470 million before tax.
Denise Coates, joint chief executive, continues to run Bet365 and is the majority shareholder with 50.1% of the shares. Her brother
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
, joint chief executive, runs the business alongside her, with her father Peter holding the position of chairman.
In the summer of 2019, the largest UK bookmakers and online casino operators
William Hill,
GVC Holdings
Entain plc, formerly GVC Holdings, is an international sports betting and gambling company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It owns brands such as bwin, Coral, Ladbrokes, PartyPoker, and Sp ...
,
Flutter Entertainment
Flutter Entertainment plc (formerly Paddy Power Betfair plc) is an Irish gambling holding company created by the merger of Paddy Power and Betfair, and the later acquisition of The Stars Group. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is ...
,
Stars Group and Bet365 entered into an agreement to transfer funds to combat gambling addiction. They agreed to increase the amount from 0.1% to 1% of gross income in the next five years.
Overseas operations
In 2018, shortly after the
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on sports betting allowed U.S. states to regulate sports betting, Bet365 announced plans to launch in the United States starting with the state of
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
with a partnership with
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in
Atlantic City. The company would later announce in September 2021 that Bet365 will launch in Colorado with a licensing and revenue share deal with
Century Casinos
Century Casinos, Inc. is a gaming company based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The company operates ten casinos in Colorado, Missouri, West Virginia, and Alberta. It also operates casinos on four cruise ships for TUI Cruises. It owns a 67 percent ...
. Bet365 opened up operations in Colorado on 6 September 2022.
In April 2022, Bet365 was also launched in Ontario after it was approved by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to conduct sports betting activities in the province following the passing of a new Canadian law that legalized single-game betting.
Awards and achievements
At the eGaming Review Operator Awards 2010 organised by ''
eGaming Review'' magazine, Bet365 won the "Operator of the Year" award. Bet365 ranked third in ''The Sunday Times Profit Track 100'' league table, which ranks private companies in the UK based on profit growth rate. Bet365 was also ranked as one of the fastest growing privately owned technology, media and telecoms companies in ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
Tech Track 100
The Sunday Times Tech Track 100 is an annual league table published in association with The Sunday Times newspaper in the UK. It ranks Britain’s 100 private technology (TMT) companies with the fastest-growing sales over their last three years. ...
'' league table.
''eGaming Review'' magazine has ranked Bet365 the number one Internet gaming company in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as part of its annual Power 50 list of the top 50 most influential Internet gaming companies. Denise Coates, founder and joint CEO of Bet365, received a CBE in the 2012 Queen's new year honours list for services to the community and business. In February 2013 Denise Coates was named as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by ''
Woman's Hour
''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946.
History
Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by ...
'' at
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
.
Controversies
In October 2014, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper reported that the company had been taking bets from Chinese citizens by using obscure domain names in order to avoid government web censorship.
In 2016, Bet365 was fined $2.75 million AUD by the
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Trad ...
for misleading advertisements which falsely promised "free bets" to customers.
Denise Coates became the highest paid executive in the UK in 2017, awarding herself a salary of £217m. In 2018, her pay packet rose to £265m as the company reported profits up 31% to £660m, prompting criticism from problem gambling charity groups. In January 2019, Bet365 ranked second on ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' list of the UK's top taxpayers, with the Coates family – Denise, John and Peter – paying an estimated total tax of £156 million, of which £99 million was paid by Denise alone.
Further criticism highlights repeated cases of Bet365 delaying or outright denying payment to winning players. For example, Bet365 was taken to court for refusing to pay over £1 million in winnings to a horse bettor in Northern Ireland in 2017. The company refused a payout of £54,000 to a punter in England in 2016, a case which is still ongoing as of 2017. In Australia, Bet365 froze the account and refused to pay a punter who had won around $200,000 AUD in 2016. These are just some of the most noteworthy instances; several more cases of Bet365 refusing to pay winnings have been reported by gamblers on Internet gambling forums.
Betting is illegal in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, but Bet365 was doing
Surrogate advertising, consumer affairs ministry, India, served notices to various television channels and apps for showing betting companies ads and asked to stop Bet365 etc betting platforms ads immediately.
Media
In the UK, the face of Bet365, since 2010, has been actor
Ray Winstone
Raymond Andrew Winstone (; born 19 February 1957) is an English television, stage and film actor with a career spanning five decades. Having worked with many prominent directors, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, Winstone is perha ...
.
References
External links
*
{{Stoke-on-Trent
Companies based in Stoke-on-Trent
Online gambling companies of the United Kingdom
Gambling companies established in 2000
Internet properties established in 2000
2000 establishments in the United Kingdom
Online casinos
Coates family