Bet365 Revenue Declines But CEO Still Receives Bumper Pay Package
Esports betting is just one of the many different aspects of the bet365 family of sites, but over the period from 2019 to 2020, the largest betting site in the UK announced that it had seen its total revenues decline by just over 8% to £2.81 billion for the year.
The company revealed that the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic during the final weeks of the 19-20 fiscal year, along with higher costs were the predominant factors that caused the tail off in revenue.
However, the company projected that had a number of major sports events taken place, such as the European 2020 Championships, as scheduled, then the revenue from its sports and gaming business would have actually seen a 2% increase over the same period.
The number of active customers on the site grew by 4%, but the amount wagered on sports declined by 8%.
Esports Betting Included In The Data
Bet365 has not provided figures of how much revenue they generated from esports bets UK customers had made with the company, but it would buck trends shown by other companies if the site did not at least begin to see an increase in revenue from esports betting, at least at the end of the trading period when the Covid-19 pandemic began to take effect on a national and global scale.
Over the years, Bet365 esports betting services have increased and improved markedly and it has now become one of the best traditional sports betting sites for offering esports betting services in the UK.
We do know that while revenue from mobile betting declined by 7% over the period, In Play betting proved extremely popular with 75% of sports betting revenue coming from this particular type of bet. This will include esports In Play betting too.
“Operate The Business Successfully”
Despite the slight loss, the CEO of bet365 Denise Coates expressed her delight at how the company had performed.
“We continued to operate the business successfully throughout the lockdowns with business continuity plans enacted resulting in staff being able to work from home whilst significant investment was also made to ensure that the office environments were Covid secure.”
Having made a policy not to make staff redundant or reduce their pay during the pandemic, Bet365 saw its total number of employees increase to 5014 by the end of April 2020.
Some of the other improvements over the year have included a greater focus on Responsible Gambling with a number of features and initiatives started to help problem gamblers bet responsibly.
In particular for its esports service, pre-game and in-play markets for a greater number of esports events have been rolled out, while Virtual Sports betting has also been improved with the addition of new titles, such as American Football and Basketball.
Coates Salary Draws Criticism
Despite the generally positive news regarding their financial position, bet365’s Chief Executive Officer Denise Coates has been criticised for her pay award for the year, which has been reported as amounting to £421 in total.
This would mean that over the last four years, the CEO has earned almost £1.3 billion from the company that she played a key role in developing in the early 2000s.
It is believed Coates is now worth £7bn. Her family are believed to be the biggest taxpayers in the UK, paying over £500m a year in tax once Bet365’s Corporation tax is included.
However, following on from a £323m pay deal in 2019, her pay award has drawn criticism.
Luke Hildyard of the High Pay Centre commented:
“It’s appallingly inefficient for single individuals to hoard wealth in this way when fairer systems of taxation could mean the wealth is instead used to support better public services or raise living standards for low-and middle-income earners.”
Coates is now the highest paid woman in the UK and she commented on the results:
“On behalf of the board, I am pleased to report that the group continued to make considerable progress during the period, particularly in the priority area of safer gambling, where significant investment and developments have been made.”
“The period also saw the initial impact of Covid-19, with sport at all levels halted across the world. I am delighted with how the group responded and adapted to these challenging circumstances.”
Since: August 10, 2015
