Denise Coates, chief executive of the online gambling firm Bet365, took a circa-50% pay cut last year, but will probably survive on taking home around £158m nonetheless.

Coates, believed to be the highest-paid director of Bet365 Group and one of Britain’s wealthiest women, was paid a salary of £94.7m in the year ending March 2024, down from £221m the year before despite the Stoke-based company’s pre-tax profits surging to over half a billion for the year.

But she also received dividends of around £63m thanks to her holding in the company, according to company accounts filed with Companies House.

Coates has been credited with the rapid rise of the Stoke-on-Trent gambling firm, which offers sports betting, poker, casino games and bingo online to millions of customers worldwide.

She became fixated on the potential for online gambling 25 years ago, according to her brother John, who is co-chief executive of Bet365 and joint-chairman of Stoke City football club alongside their father, while working for the family-run chain of local betting shops.

After persuading her family to mortgage the business to fund and develop new software and setting up headquarters in a temporary building in a car park, she became a pioneer in the shift and growth of online gambling.

The company’s growth has seen it become one of the world’s biggest online gambling websites and the largest private-sector employer in the Stoke area.

Monday’s filing, which also showed turnover of £3.72bn for the year, up from £3.41bn a year earlier, compared with a loss of £72.6m the year before when it was expanding in regions such as North America.

Coates’ diminished pay packet comes after last year’s £221m settlement came under fire from organisations including the High Pay Centre think tank, which questioned whether the sum was “sensible and proportionate.”

A statement from the company on this year’s results read:

“The group has continued to invest in its trading platform capability and markets, increasing our global in-play and pre-match market offerings still further. The visual sports product has been improved, with enhancements to soccer and the addition of more sports, including American football and baseball.

“Our match live offering also continued to expand with the addition of basketball, further enhancing customers’ real time sports information and in-play options and experience.”