Denise Coates Children
Denise Coates was born on September 26, 1967 in Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom, United Kingdom, is Founder and Joint CEO, Bet365. Denise Coates is co-CEO of Bet365, one of the world's largest online gambling companies, along with her billionaire brother, John. Tell us whether you accept cookies. We use cookies to collect information about how you use the Charity Commission Register of Charities and Digital Services, such as pages you visit. We use this information to make the website works as well as possible and to improve our services.
Denise, John and Peter Coates
One year’s profits turned the Coats family into major philanthropists
They made a profit of £319 million ($510 million) in one year and took£100 million ($160 million) of that to set up a charitable foundation. Too good to be true? No, that is exactly what the British Coates family did when their online gambling operation bet365 more than doubled its profits in 2013.
According to the 2015 Sunday Times Rich List, Denise, John and Peter Coates are worth an estimated £2.3 billion ($3.7 billion). Their wealth makes them the 44th richest family in Britain.
It’s hard to believe that it was only fourteen years ago that Denise Coates started bet365 from a car park in Stoke. She was joined by her brother John as co-CEO, while Peter Coates holds the position of chairman of the online betting business.
No doubt the two Coates children have a lot to thank their father for. Peter Coates was the youngest of a Stoke miner’s 14 children, with dreams of playing professional football, but he was “not quite good enough”.
Instead Peter Coates became a businessman, founding Stadia Catering in the1960s and Signal Radio in 1983. He also started Provincial Racing, a bookmaking firm. And although his football playing dreams never come true, he became chairman of Stoke City Football Club.
Already early on it was clear that Denise Coates would follow in her father’s footsteps. She started working in the cashiers’ department of Provincial Racing while still at school. After obtaining a first class degree in econometrics Denise Coates also trained as an accountant, before taking over the small chain of bookmaking shops.
In 2001 Denise Coates convinced John Coates, who studied law and started his career as an attorney, to join her in launching bet365. The rest is history. Her success was also recognized outside the betting industry in 2011 when she was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
The bet365 Foundation, set up as a result of the family’s remarkable profits in 2013, supports a wide range of community initiatives. Its core objective is to work through UK-registered charities to provide front-line funding that is used to make a positive difference in people’s lives.
By July 2015 the bet365 Foundation had become the largest charity in Britain’s West Midlands. According to data from Charity Financials it helped the region to increase its charity revenue by 10.2%.
Some of the first beneficiaries of the bet365 Foundation were Oxfam, Cafod, the Douglas Macmillan Hospice for cancer sufferers in Stoke, as well as relief programs for victims caught in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
If the cause is convincing, bet365 has proven it is prepared to give. For example, after seeing a presentation by St Joseph’s College in Trent Vale, Denise Coates was so impressed by the school’s work to help vulnerable young people in Sierra Leone’s second city of Bo, that the foundation pledged £230,000 ($345,000) to the college. The money is meant to pay for new classrooms, educational equipment, a generator, a well for fresh water, and even a minibus.
More recently, the bet365 Foundation made a significant donation to University Hospitals of North Midlands Charitable Fundto purchase advanced gynecological equipment. Mark Hackett, chief executive of the hospital, described the contribution as invaluable as the surgical equipment would significantly add to the options available to patients.
Denise Coates said about the donation: “Getting woman the help they need as early as possible is essential for improving their treatment and long-term health. It is a huge privilege to be able to support the excellent work of University Hospitals of North Midlands.”
In the latest philanthropic gesture, the University of Bristol Law School, where John Coates studied, announced a £80,000 ($120,000) bursary schemefinanced by the bet365 Foundation to support 40 students from low-income backgrounds. Successful applicants will receive a bursary of £2,000 ($3,000)each, providing crucial support in their first year.
John Coates said about the support that the transition from school to academia can be rough for under-represented students: “With the bet365 Foundation bursaries we hope to support students in this character building year and help them lay foundations for future success.”
One of the biggest and most appreciated contributions by the bet365 Foundation was when Denise Coates pledged £250,000 ($365,000) towards saving the Wedgwood Collection. This collection has been described as one of the most important industrial archives in the world and a unique record of over 250 years of British art and history.
“We’re delighted that the bet365 Foundation has been able to support such a worthwhile campaign so close to home. Having supported causes around the world, it’s particularly rewarding that we’ve been able to support a collection that has such significant support from the local community,” Denise Coates said.
Father Peter Coates is also making a personal contribution to charitable causes whenever he can. In 2014 he supported Stoke City goalkeeper Asmir Begovic to raise £50,000 ($80,000) for his charity to encourage more young people to participate in sport, along with a scheme to open a multi-purpose sports facility for children with special needs in his homeland, Bosnia.Peter Coates matched donations of £25,000 ($40,000) raised by Asmir and his supporters to double the takings.
With such a promising and laudable track record after only two years, there is much anticipation as to what the bet365 Foundation will continue to contribute to charitable causes in the years to come.
Sources:
Bowers, Simon. (2014, July 11). Bet365’s Denise Coates sets up £100m charity foundation. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/11/bet365-denise-coates-charity-foundation
James, Laura. (2015, April 26). Coates family’s £2.3 billion fortune ‘a good sign’ for Stoke City. The Stoke Sentinel. Retrieved from http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Coates-family-s-2-3-billion-fortune-good-sign/story-26389165-detail/story.html
Bet 365 Foundation drives West Midlands income growth. (2015, July 27). Retrieved from http://www.charityfinancials.com/charity-financials-insider/bet365-foundation-drives-west-midlands-income-growth-1614.html
bet365 Foundation Donation Brings Advanced Gynecological Equipment to UHNM. (2015, April 14). http://www.uhnm.nhs.uk/news/pages/bet365-Foundation-Donation-Brings-Advanced-Gynaecological-Equipment-to-UHNM.aspx
University of Bristol Law School announces 2015-16 bet365 Foundation bursary scheme for under-represented students. (2015, September 25). Retrieved from http://www.bristol.ac.uk/law/news/2015/bet365.html
Stoke City chairman Peter Coates helps Asmir Begovic Foundation raise £50,000 at the Brittania Stadium. (2014, September 16). The Stoke Sentinel. Retrieved from http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Stoke-City-chairman-Peter-Coates-helps-Asmir/story-22930327-detail/story.html
There are many success stories out there about families who come from nothing to build a valuable, profitable business.
Usually, this comes with much turmoil, especially when children get involved with the day-to-day operations of the business; it is family, after all.
In the case of the Coates family, only the first part of that statement is true; this family is tight-knit and has built a sports and gambling empire despite being related.
Peter Coates was born into a very poor family in Stoke-on-Trent, England in 1938. This small town was all about their football, with their own Stoke City FC at the top of everyone’s minds. Peter’s family were not in the bookmaking business; in fact, it wasn’t until he was into his thirties that he started to make his move into the business.
Leading up to that, he wanted to be a professional football player, having played at various levels before finally giving up on his dram at 23.
After taking a job at the well-known Wimpy’s Diner chain, he moved quickly through the ranks, soon becoming a Regional Manager.
With his feet now wet in business, he moved on to create a catering company that targeted providing food to stadiums; this business grew quickly and merged with a competitor in 1968, making Coates a significant sum of money.
Seeing as he hadn’t realized his dreams as a footballer, Coates decided to stay involved in the action by purchasing a series of betting shops and turning them into the brand Provincial racing.
As that business and the catering business continued to increase Peter’s wealth, he felt a desire to get close to his home squad; he bought a controlling interest in Stoke City FC in 1989.
Bringing in the Family
His children were busy at university studying and hadn’t yet become part of the family business (any of them, actually). After she completed her first degree, she was enlisted to manage the bookmaking business.
She thought the land-based shops the family owned were garbage, but as this was the late 1990’s…
John Coates worked alongside his sister in the betting business, but it was clear that Denise was the driving force of the two of them.
In fact, Denise owns up to the fact that she is the “bossy” one in the family, and this drive led her to bring on a rival group of betting shops into the fold.
There have been a lot of stories written that explain that the family business of Bet365 was started by Peter Coates.
It is confirmed by Denise herself in a rare interview (she likes to keep a low profile). Near the end of the millennium, with the Internet Age squarely in our sites, Denise felt the time was right to jump into the uncharted world of internet gambling.
Of course, she was not the only one with this idea. Her competition in the land-based space, Ladbrokes, William Hill and Victor Chandler, were all plotting their own foray into the market.
The difference is that these companies all had very compelling brand recognition; Provincial Racing did not.
So, Coates took it upon herself to change that; in 200, she paid 10,000 GBP from the URL Bet365.com. The family then mortgaged the betting shops to the tune of 15 Million GBP, and bet365 was born.
The marketplace was competitive, and in the UK it was vicious. Coates needed to make her mark to stake out her position. Having the name Bet365 made sense; her idea was not to have the book be an extension of the land-based business but to change the thinking about gambling.
She wanted players to know that they could bet 24/7, 365 days a year.
Coates didn’t stop there. To combat the online sites with no land-based presence, she made it perfectly clear that Bet365 had live shops, where players could come and get service even on their online accounts.
They were one of the first companies to add casino, bingo, and poker to their site; Denise believed in the one-stop-shop mentality long before many of her competitors.
Also, the company was far ahead of the curve when it came to both mobile compatibility and in-game betting.
Add this all up, and you have a company that had gone from having to put the betting shops up as collateral on a loan to Coates being able to sell those very shops to Coral for 50 Million in 2005.
This move allowed Coates to focus her full attention on the online business and increasing its profitability.
Peter Coates relinquished his seat as Chairman of Stoke City Fc in 1999 when he sold his shares for a few million pounds.
With the growth of the online business and the cash from the sale of Provincial Racing’s betting shops, Denise was able to bring that stake in Stoke back into the family.
Denise Coates Children Photos
In 2006, Bet365 bought back the shares they had sold, and they reinstated the senior Coates as Chairman.
There is no doubt that this has been a family affair; what is abnormal about this rags-to-riches story is how hard it is to find information about it.
Denise Coates Child
The Coates family is fiercely private; even though Peter and Denise are billionaire owners of an English soccer team, they never flaunt it; in fact, you would be hard-pressed to notice Denise at any of the Stoke City games even if you had her picture.
Denise Coates Children Murdered
We all love our family, but it’s likely Peter Coates has a bigger soft spot for his daughter than anyone given her prowess, foresight, and tenacity in starting Bet365 and growing it into the juggernaut it is today.