Ed Miliband, the British Labor Party leader, has been criticized by the Daily Mail newspaper, which is well known for its views on anti-gambling, for hypocrisy as a result of the Party leader allegedly accepting considerable political donations from leading online gambling group Bet365 founder, Peter Coates.
Miliband has recently undertaken to empower local councils to restrict the increasing number of betting shops in shopping areas in the UK and has also been active in developing political capital from his outspoken opposition to Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in High Street bookie shops.
The Daily Mail newspaper does, however, claim that Miliband’s party has a very good reason to be thankful for donations of over £400,000 from Coates since 2004, as more and more people are being attracted to online gambling.
The newspaper also revealed how successful Bet365 is as a company which is run by the daughter of the founder, Denise Coates, and that over a third of Bet365’s profits are derived from its Gibraltar based subsidiary in order to avoid high British taxation.
Peter Coates was one of 14 children and was brought up in a mining community. He left school at 14 years of age and after serving his national military commitment he ran a fast food restaurant before selling fast food to football clubs. Coates thereafter switched to the gambling industry and in no time built up a chain of 49 betting shops. His daughter later persuaded him to mortgage the shops and invest everything into founding and building Bet365 that is today an online gambling enterprise.
Coates is unapologetic about his donations to the Labor Party who he says he has supported all his life. He said that he never asked for any favors for the gambling industry and would never get any favors from the government.
