Peter Coates

Peter Coates (born 13 January 1938) is an English businessman, the co-founder of bet365, and the chairman of Stoke City Football Club. He has been listed as the 25th-richest person in British football. He founded Stadia Catering in the 1960s and Signal Radio in 1983. Early life Peter Coates was born in Goldenhill, Stoke-on-Trent, the youngest of 14 children. He was brought up by his sister, Irene, after his mother died when he was two. His father, Leonard was a miner and World War I veteran who had a keen interest in football, where they regularly attended Stoke City's Victoria Ground. Coates signed for the club on amateur terms in the 1950s, but admitted he was "not quite good enough" to make it as a professional; instead he went on to play for local non-league sides Goldenhill Wanderers and Kidsgrove Athletic. He stopped playing football at the age of 23. Early business dealings Coates left school at age fourteen to work in an office to help his family make ends meet. This lasted until he was old enough to join the Parachute Regiment for his National Service. After leaving the army he took a job with the Wimpy restaurant chain, eventually rising to the position of regional manager. Using his restaurant background as a springboard, Coates founded Stadia Catering. Their specialty was catering events at football grounds, and they would eventually merge with competitor Lindley Catering. He used the increase in revenue to purchase a chain of betting shops that he dubbed Provincial Racing. He also founded the local radio station Signal 1 in 1983. bet365 bet365 was founded in 2000 in a portakabin in Stoke-on-Trent by the Coates family, led by his daughter Denise. Denise Coates developed a sports betting platform and trading team to launch the business online in March 2001. The business borrowed £15 million from RBS against the family's betting shop estate which had been started by Peter Coates in 1974. bet365 sold its betting shop chain in 2005 for £40 million and paid off its loan to RBS. bet365 has grown into one of the world's largest online gambling companies, with its reported figures to March 2010 showing amounts wagered on sports at £5.4 billion, revenues of £358 million, and an operating profit of £104 million. Peter Coates holds the position of chairman of bet365. Denise Coates, joint chief executive, continues to run bet365 with her brother, John.