New Year’s Honor for Bet365 Founder

January 4, 2012

>Each year the Queen of England selects a number of British people to receive a national award to recognize their contribution to the British Empire. These awards, known as the Queen’s New Year’s Honors List, can be given for a wide range of reasons, one of which is a significant commercial contribution to the UK economy.

So it probably should come as no surprise that Denis Coates, the founder of the massive UK based online casino Bet365, has been recognized in this year’s honors list and awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) honor. The reason stated for the award was Denis’s “services to business and to the community.”

Denis Coates, who owns the controlling share of Bet365 has stated that she sees the award as an incredible honor, but it would not have been possible to attain it without the backup of the entire Bet365 team. A humble statement from one of the pioneers of online gambling, the leading light behind Bet365, one of the world’s most successful online casinos.

Coates originally started the company in 2000, a small startup at that. Fast forward to 2012 and Bet365 is one of the largest online casinos in the world. Bet365 serves over six million customers and employs almost 2,000 staff. That’s quite some growth from a back room startup just eleven years ago. Bet365 is now an international company, operating in multiple currencies and offering the full range of online gambling products and services.

Something we cannot help but wonder is whether this move to award Denis Coates a CBE is some form of indirect statement that online casinos and online gambling will continue to be both legal in the UK, and supported by the government. If we take into consideration the fact that the UK Government has recently begun to revise its legislative view on online casinos, as well as tightening up the tax position of online casino providers, then this award could be seen as the online gambling industry being thrown a bone.

Of course, we believe Denis Coates has truly earned the reward of being awarded a CBE, and we hope to see more key figures from the online gambling industry honored in coming years.

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