Denise Coates, the founder and joint Chief Executive of online bookmaker Bet365 has been named as the largest taxpayer in the UK after landing a tax bill of an estimated £276 million.
According to the Sunday Times tax list, Coates had the biggest liability of any other person in the UK in 2019. Coates and her family also own English Premier League football club, Stoke City.
The Bet365 corporation tax bill came to £113.2 million. Coates also paid £130 million on her £276.6 million yearly income.
The online gambling industry in the UK continues to rake in vast amounts of profits annually. Bet365’s revenue hit £2.98 billion within the past 12 months, up 10% from the previous year. Operating profits for the bookmaker also increased by 12% from £682 million to £767 million.Bet365 customers wagered over £64.4 billion in bets during the same period, up some 23% from the pervious year.
Sports betting as well as online casino betting are one of the few remaining growth markets that exist in the UK.
“Certainly, the online gambling market continues to grow in the UK. Both sportsbook and casino betting remaintwo of the most favoured pastimes in Britain,” states a spokesperson from slot website Labslots.com.
“UK punters have never been keener to bet on their favourite football teams or play on their favourite slot machines. Despite the heavy regulations that are in place in the UK market, casinos and bookies continue to find ways in which to satisfy their customers. The UK is the safest place in the world to gamble online as well the most lucrative.”
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) recently announced its decision to introduce a ban on credit card gambling which will come into force in April 2020. Once this ban is enforced, UK gambling sites will be banned from accepting customer payments via credit cards.
It is expected that this will have a detrimental effect on the future profits of gambling companies as it is likely that many customers, rather than find a new way to deposit their money, will instead simply stop gambling.
On the other hand, there are so many different ways in which to deposit money to gambling sites, a number of players will simply switch to one of these different ways and continue gambling.
