Unibet (Kindred) vs bet365

Unibet was started by Anders Ström, a professional sports handicapper who felt that existing bookmakers didn’t respect their customers. He launched Unibet to share his own betting insights and data with others, creating a "by players, for players" community. It was one of the first sites to offer real-time data and transparency in an era of opaque, paper-based betting, which helped it build a deeply loyal, sophisticated core user base.

Unibet listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm, using the capital to aggressively expand into non-Nordic markets. The firm was a pioneer in using local-language sites, local-market marketing, and hyper-localized customer support to win in fragmented European countries. By the late 2000s, Unibet was a household name in dozens of countries, operating one of the most advanced digital platforms in the industry.

To reflect the fact that Unibet was now just one of many brands in its portfolio (which included Maria Casino and 32Red), the parent company rebranded as Kindred Group. Unibet remained the flagship "sports" brand, while Kindred began focusing on cross-platform data synergies. The goal was to share player data and risk-management insights across all brands to optimize lifetime value and minimize problem gambling risks.

The acquisition of the entire Kindred Group by French lottery giant FDJ for €2.6 billion marked a major transition for the Unibet brand. The Unibet platform was to be integrated into the wider FDJ digital technology engine, allowing the brand to leverage even more significant capital and infrastructure. This move was aimed at helping the brand navigate the increasingly complex and expensive regulatory hurdles of the European market.

By mid-2026, Unibet continues to serve as the primary sports brand within the Kindred/FDJ digital portfolio. It has successfully moved from its community-handicapper roots to a highly automated, AI-enhanced betting engine. It operates with deep, institutional-grade compliance and risk-management, contributing significant high-margin revenue to its French parent company while maintaining its strong, recognizable European brand identity.

Denise Coates grew up working in her father Peter's chain of betting shops in Stoke-on-Trent, eventually becoming managing director of the small retail estate in 1995 after earning a first-class degree in econometrics from the University of Sheffield. In 2000, she saw something that almost nobody else in the gambling industry recognised: the internet was going to transform betting entirely. She acquired the bet365.com domain, borrowed £15 million from Royal Bank of Scotland against the family's physical betting estate, and launched the digital platform in March 2001. By 2005, she had sold the physical shops for £40 million and the company was a pure online operator — a prescient exit from retail betting years before its decline.

What made bet365 genuinely different from its competitors was not its branding or marketing — it was its proprietary live betting technology. Bet365 built its own data streams and odds calculation engines, enabling it to update odds on in-play sporting events three to five seconds faster than competitors who relied on third-party data suppliers. In a world where millions of pounds were bet in the moments after a goal was scored or a wicket fell, that three-second advantage was worth billions over time. The in-play betting market bet365 helped create became the dominant format for modern sports gambling.

Coates became the highest-paid woman in the world in 2017, awarding herself a salary of £217 million from bet365's profits. The figure — and the subsequent years in which it exceeded £200 million — drew enormous criticism, particularly from problem gambling charities who argued that paying executives hundreds of millions while running a gambling platform that caused social harm was indefensible. Coates was largely unmoved by the criticism. She maintained near-total privacy, rarely gave interviews, and continued running the company alongside her brother John (co-CEO) and father Peter (chairman). The Coates family's combined fortune was estimated at £9.44 billion in March 2025.

Bet365 reported revenues of £4 billion in fiscal year 2025 (ending March 2025), with pre-tax profit of £349 million — lower than the previous year due to costs of entering new markets in North and South America. The company was operating in 13 US states and invested more than $135 million in a new US headquarters in Denver, Colorado. In May 2026, bet365 launched in France — the first major international operator to enter the French regulated market since it opened to competition in 2010 — ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Denise Coates received over £260 million in salary and dividends in 2025, retaining her title as Britain's highest-paid executive.

Media analysts in 2025 speculated that bet365 could be valued at approximately $12 billion in a sale or public listing. Denise Coates has given no indication she intends to sell or list. The family that had leveraged physical betting shops to build a digital empire had no need for external capital and no desire to answer to public shareholders. Bet365 remained private while operating at a scale that dwarfed many publicly traded gambling companies. The portable building in Stoke-on-Trent where Coates had launched in 2001 had become one of the most profitable gambling businesses in the world — owned entirely by the family that had built it.