AS COST OF COVID ROCKETS GAMBLING TYCOONS AMONG UK’S TOP TAXPAYERS

Gambling tycoons have been revealed as among the top British taxpayers again, with Bet365 CEO Denise Coates and family paying most tax for the second year running.

As the UK struggles with battling the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, and national debt rockets pay £2.1 trillion, the gambling industry is one of the few healthy sectors of the economy, and gambling business owners are contributing huge amounts to the national coffers. 

According to the Sunday Times Tax List 2021, Denise Coates and her family contributed a staggering £573M GBP in taxes for 2020, and are reported to be worth some £7.17B. Betfred owners, the Done brothers, with a fortune worth £1.2B, took third place in the list, paying £191.3M in taxes for the year. 

Coates and family also topped the Sunday Times’ list last year, when they paid £276M in tax. However, this year the newspaper used a different method for calculating contributions, and took into account gambling duties paid by businesses, hence the significantly increased sums. 

In April 2020, as the pandemic rapidly took hold in Britain, Denise Coates also awarded a £10M grant to a National Health Service (NHS) hospital trust, to help in the fight against the virus.

AYO.NEWS says:

With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis destroying a large chunk of the British economy, and putting much of the rest of it on life support, tax revenues are tumbling, so the contribution of the gambling sector, which is one of the few industries to continue growing, is more vital than ever. This, coupled with the employment it provides, should perhaps be weighed against the very real, but usually extremely biasedly portrayed issue of problem gambling.

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