Bet 365 best paid boss hits £323m

[Pop321]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50834994

As a left leaning liberal this is an interesting issue for me. The whole position around ‘gambling’ and how this business generates it wealth is a topic in itself.

My query is whether £323m is fair. This is a private company, privately owned, set up by the owners, risk taken by owners...so this ‘boss’ is infact the owner and how much she pays herself is up to her? It raises inequality issues but even as a leftie I know life sometimes life doesn’t seem fair....and then you die. 

What worries me is whether other ‘directors’ think there is a read across and they too want more money. I am talking about plcs (eg the banks) whose Chief Execs are ‘employees’ who have only just started working for their employer ie in the last few years and are using something that was built by others over hundreds of years to grab £4/5/6/7m a year. 

The director pay reviews and reporting should definitely be focusing on the employees in an ‘old boys club’ paying themselves and each other huge salaries via mutual owned voting rights.

We should differentiate a business owner taking money from THEIR company rather than director of a plc. Always annoys me when a banker gets £7m and they get a local company director on the radio defending directors pay....when the 2 things are completely different. 

[Wayward]

Shareholders need to be more involved,  activist. They are being taken for fools by many company bosses.

[Bluestone59]

I would not trade with these characters, a long time ago I did briefly.

Plus the fact that if someone is able to pay themselves as much as this there's the suspicion it's a worse deal than the competition, which I happen to think is the case here.

[Exiled Canadian]

7 hours ago, Pop321 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50834994

As a left leaning liberal this is an interesting issue for me. The whole position around ‘gambling’ and how this business generates it wealth is a topic in itself.

My query is whether £323m is fair. This is a private company, privately owned, set up by the owners, risk taken by owners...so this ‘boss’ is infact the owner and how much she pays herself is up to her? It raises inequality issues but even as a leftie I know life sometimes life doesn’t seem fair....and then you die. 

What worries me is whether other ‘directors’ think there is a read across and they too want more money. I am talking about plcs (eg the banks) whose Chief Execs are ‘employees’ who have only just started working for their employer ie in the last few years and are using something that was built by others over hundreds of years to grab £4/5/6/7m a year. 

The director pay reviews and reporting should definitely be focusing on the employees in an ‘old boys club’ paying themselves and each other huge salaries via mutual owned voting rights.

We should differentiate a business owner taking money from THEIR company rather than director of a plc. Always annoys me when a banker gets £7m and they get a local company director on the radio defending directors pay....when the 2 things are completely different. 

Concerns about the sector aside the CEO founded and built a successful business.  As long as she is paying all the tax the law requires then good luck to her.

 

 

[Pop321]

1 hour ago, Bluestone59 said:

I would not trade with these characters, a long time ago I did briefly.

Plus the fact that if someone is able to pay themselves as much as this there's the suspicion it's a worse deal than the competition, which I happen to think is the case here.

That’s a very different point....but a rather interesting one. Ie the odds seem stacked against me winning because the owners are definitely winning. That logic would make me think very carefully about placing a bet ?

[Bluestone59]

3 hours ago, Pop321 said:

That’s a very different point....but a rather interesting one. Ie the odds seem stacked against me winning because the owners are definitely winning. That logic would make me think very carefully about placing a bet ?

And so it should. 

One thing I discovered was that the skills of the layers do vary or certainly used to.  Computing advances have likely narrowed such differences since then. During my association with 365 I found I'd run up a £650 loss, this perturbed me a little as was more than I'd thought or was used to doing. Then I got half of it back in one go followed by a couple of smaller wins and I bailed out, but they were still a little bit ahead of me at the end.

They always struck me as bandits, they had a nickname "Bet £3.65" at one time due to their pathetic niggly paring down of what they'd allow you to stake. Coates replied that jobs were at stake, (and her remuneration although she didn't mention that).

If I'm offended by level of an executive's pay I won't patronise the firm unless I'm totally stuck.  That's the right way to hit back; as the guy said above, if Coates is that good at making money fair play to her.  Maybe she gives shedloads to charidee although I can't look at her picture for more than a few seconds, seems like she's drilling into my soul.

Despite my slight socialist tendencies I don't want armies of civil servants deciding people's pay on orders from Corbyn, McDonnell or similar. But yes, some execs' pay is obscene.

 

 

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

5 hours ago, Exiled Canadian said:

Concerns about the sector aside the CEO founded and built a successful business.  As long as she is paying all the tax the law requires then good luck to her.

 

 

I personally think this sort of gambling should be illegal. All past profits and pay should be stripped and the offenders taken to the Tower. 

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

33 minutes ago, Bluestone59 said:

And so it should. 

One thing I discovered was that the skills of the layers do vary or certainly used to.  Computing advances have likely narrowed such differences since then. During my association with 365 I found I'd run up a £650 loss, this perturbed me a little as was more than I'd thought or was used to doing. Then I got half of it back in one go followed by a couple of smaller wins and I bailed out, but they were still a little bit ahead of me at the end.

They always struck me as bandits, they had a nickname "Bet £3.65" at one time due to their pathetic niggly paring down of what they'd allow you to stake. Coates replied that jobs were at stake, (and her remuneration although she didn't mention that).

If I'm offended by level of an executive's pay I won't patronise the firm unless I'm totally stuck.  That's the right way to hit back; as the guy said above, if Coates is that good at making money fair play to her.  Maybe she gives shedloads to charidee although I can't look at her picture for more than a few seconds, seems like she's drilling into my soul.

Despite my slight socialist tendencies I don't want armies of civil servants deciding people's pay on orders from Corbyn, McDonnell or similar. But yes, some execs' pay is obscene.

 

 

As you mentioned it: https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/bet365-companies-gave-founder-s-charity-75m-last-year.html

I've spent the past couple of years rinsing bet365 of as much as I could. I used to cherish Denise more than my wife. Alas it is no more and I’m having a Bob Cratchit Christmas this time round.

 

(will pay good money for a promo eligible 365 account ?)

[Bluestone59]

5 minutes ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

I personally think this sort of gambling should be illegal. All past profits and pay should be stripped and the offenders taken to the Tower. 

It would then go underground which would likely be far worse.  But admittedly would be much smaller scale.

I've always felt the lottery to be far more grotesque and I've heard that some very badly off folk spend insane amounts on it. 

[HowMuch!]

1 hour ago, Mikhail Liebenstein said:

I personally think this sort of gambling should be illegal. All past profits and pay should be stripped and the offenders taken to the Tower. 

And which sort of gambling is "this sort" not acceptable?

[longgone]

In my gambling days they had a grand off me in one evening back in 2007 when you spend that kind of money quickly they call you up and ask if you are "ok"

I closed it the same day.

Now I gamble 50k on the p bonds and the odd lottery ticket or a day at the races. The older I get the less Willing I am to risk money.

 

 

[Orb]

£323m? If that doesn't support the maxim "the house always wins", I don't know what does. 

[reddog]

On 19/12/2019 at 09:14, Wayward said:

Shareholders need to be more involved,  activist. They are being taken for fools by many company bosses.

It's a privately held company

[nothernsoul]

One of the worst things new labour did was deregulate the gambling industry. It has led to a huge rise in problem gambling. If it was up to me, i would allow gambling with cash on the high street as it was in the old days, but make it illegal to gamble with a credit or debit card, which would shut online down overnight. I know this is a bit nanny state, but as the industry well knows, gambling doesnt rely on rationality. It is addictive, with the psychology of addiction carefully and deliberately built into the games. 

A friend of mines husband, gambled away everything online, losing the house, leaving his wife and child homeless. Was told by an alcoholic that he is grateful he isnt a gambling addict, as he believes that is the worst type of addiction, even though it doesnt have a detrimental effect on the body. 

 

[longgone]

9 minutes ago, nothernsoul said:

One of the worst things new labour did was deregulate the gambling industry. It has led to a huge rise in problem gambling. If it was up to me, i would allow gambling with cash on the high street as it was in the old days, but make it illegal to gamble with a credit or debit card, which would shut online down overnight. I know this is a bit nanny state, but as the industry well knows, gambling doesnt rely on rationality. It is addictive, with the psychology of addiction carefully and deliberately built into the games. 

A friend of mines husband, gambled away everything online, losing the house, leaving his wife and child homeless. Was told by an alcoholic that he is grateful he isnt a gambling addict, as he believes that is the worst type of addiction, even though it doesnt have a detrimental effect on the body. 

 

It is the worst kind with drugs and drink it will eventually kill you with gambling it will take everything away from you and anyone close to you. The best thing you can do is ostracise those with the addiction most will never recover gambling can be profitable for those without addictive personalities and a logical mindset though depends if you look at it functionally.

 

 

[Drat]

22 hours ago, Bluestone59 said:

I've always felt the lottery to be far more grotesque and I've heard that some very badly off folk spend insane amounts on it. 

The lottery is like an anti-robin hood, take from the poor (who are the main ones who play, or at least put the most money in) and give to the rich (subsidise the opera).  OK that is a vast generalisation but my view is that the gambling industry is obscene...

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

2 hours ago, Drat said:

The lottery is like an anti-robin hood, take from the poor (who are the main ones who play, or at least put the most money in) and give to the rich (subsidise the opera).  OK that is a vast generalisation but my view is that the gambling industry is obscene...

Agree. 

I learnt  probablility properly at school and to me gambling has always been pointless.

[Pop321]

10 hours ago, Drat said:

The lottery is like an anti-robin hood, take from the poor (who are the main ones who play, or at least put the most money in) and give to the rich (subsidise the opera).  OK that is a vast generalisation but my view is that the gambling industry is obscene...

I stopped doing the lottery fairly early on. When it went to twice a week that decision was endorsed further. I used the same numbers so if those numbers had come up mid-week and I hadn’t bought a ticket then I would have felt terrible. So rather than double my spending (and have tickets on a Saturday and midweek) I stopped altogether.  

Over 20 years I have saved £15k, and with tickets now £2 probably more......well either I have save £15k or lost millions ?

[Bluestone59]

3 hours ago, Pop321 said:

I stopped doing the lottery fairly early on. When it went to twice a week that decision was endorsed further. I used the same numbers so if those numbers had come up mid-week and I hadn’t bought a ticket then I would have felt terrible. So rather than double my spending (and have tickets on a Saturday and midweek) I stopped altogether.  

Over 20 years I have saved £15k, and with tickets now £2 probably more......well either I have save £15k or lost millions ?

In a local Co op in a less well off location the lass in front of me asked the checkout to see if two tickets had yielded anything, which it turned out one had - £10.

She replied, oh good. I've been doing it since it started and that's the first win I've had. 

That was maybe two years ago so 23 years of zilch and counting.

Since then I was in another Co op when the cashier started making a heavily restrained squawking noise. The customer, a 30 something woman which had asked for a ticket to be checked, had clearly won a biggie.

Local shopkeeper told me that sales collapsed when it increased to £2. I bet they have crept up again over time.

When the extra numbers were added, thereby making the world's worst value major lottery even worse value, it seems nobody noticed.

[Wayward]

I ran a company lottery syndicate in the 90s. About 20 or so of us. At the end of the year I returned £9 to each member...in return for their £52.

I don't go anywhere near it now. I agree it takes from the poor and gives to the better off.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Wayward

[spxy]

On 19/12/2019 at 16:58, Exiled Canadian said:

Concerns about the sector aside the CEO founded and built a successful business.  As long as she is paying all the tax the law requires then good luck to her.

 

Conning the poor is a "successful business" as long as you pay your tax? So many things wrong with that statement.

 

 

[Exiled Canadian]

Just now, spxy said:

 

My point was that I have concerns about the sector - fwiw I think that the rise of online gambling is very worrying.

My point was that if I ignored my concerns over the sector then a founder making money from a business they had successfully founded seems fine to me.

 

[spxy]

you cannot separate the two, that is flawed logic

She cannot have made the money without conning other people out of money

[Exiled Canadian]

22 minutes ago, spxy said:

you cannot separate the two, that is flawed logic

She cannot have made the money without conning other people out of money

You can.  There are two separate issues:

1. Is it right to make money out of online gambling?  My view is no.
2. Is it OK for entrepreneurs to earn lots of cash if their business is successful?  My view is yes provided that their business is ethical and they pay the legally required amount of tax.

Applying these tests to the lady in question leads me to conclude that the amount she has received is immoral because of the business it was earned from.  However, had she earned the same amount from (say) developing a better mousetrap then I'd have no problem with it.

[spxy]

for point 2. Why have they learnt a lot of cash from a successful business? Overpriced good or services? Fraud? Monopoly?