Bet365 chief Denise Coates now earns a whopping pay packet which sees her earn more than the bosses of Tesco and Apple.

Ms Coates studied econometrics at the University of Sheffield before training to be an accountant with her families firm. Now Denise’s betting empire is worth billions and in the last year alone has made a profit of £791million.

In just 12 months, gamblers placed £52.5billion worth of bets with Bet365 – bigger than the annual economic output of both Croatia and Uruguay.

But it could have all been very different for the 52-year-old from Stoke-on-Trent after she risked everything and took on a £15million loan to launch her firm from a portable cabin.

But she could see the benefits in launching online and in 2000 bought the website name Bet365.com.

Risking everything with a £15million loan from RBS, secured against her chain of betting shops, the website was launched in 2001.

Just four years later Ms Coates’ new venture was so successful she sold her chain of betting shops to Coral for £40million.

Bet365 is very much a family firm, owned by Ms Coates and members of her immediate family. Her brother, John, is joint chief executive while her father, Peter is the firm’s chairman.

She grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, where the headquarters of the firm are still based, mainly employing as many as 3,000 local people.