Bet365 boss receives at least £280m in pay and dividends despite profit slump
Denise Coates, the billionaire boss of Bet365, a self-described “ultimate gambler” and Britain’s highest-paid woman, took home at least £280m in pay and dividends in 2025 despite a slump in pre-tax profits.Coates’s Stoke-based gambling empire recorded turnover of £4bn in the year to March 2025, up from £3.7bn the year before. Pre-tax profits fell to £349m, from £627m in the previous year.Bet365 incurred a £325m increase in expenses as it reshaped its global footprint, expanding its presence in the US and South America while giving up its sometimes controversial presence in China, where online betting is illegal
US economic growth surges to fastest rate in two years; Tesla’s European sales drop again – as it happened
Newsflash: US economic growth accelerated in the third quarter of this year, to the fastest rate in two years.US real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annualised rate of 4.3% in the July-September period, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reports, up from 3.8% in April-June.That beats Wall Street forecasts that growth would slow to 3
Elon Musk, AI and the antichrist: the biggest tech stories of 2025
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a happy and healthy end of the year. I myself have a cold.Today, we are looking back at the biggest stories in tech of 2025 – Elon Musk’s political rise, burst and fall; artificial intelligence’s subsumption of the global economy, all other technology, and even the Earth’s topography; Australia’s remarkable social media ban; the tech industry’s new Trumpian politics; and, as a treat, a glimpse of the apocalypse offered by one of Silicon Valley’s savviest and strangest billionaires.At the close of 2024, I wrote that Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump had made him the world’s most powerful unelected man
Activist group says it has scraped 86m music files from Spotify
An activist group has claimed to have scraped millions of tracks from Spotify and is preparing to release them online.Observers said the apparent leak could boost AI companies looking for material to develop their technology.A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86m music files from Spotify and 256m rows of metadata such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100m tracks, confirmed that the leak did not represent its entire inventory.The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 700 million users worldwide, said it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”
Alex Samara: how a 30-year-old Englishman became an WNBA head coach
As an aspiring basketball coach in his teens and early 20s, Alex Sarama was often met with snickers when he talked about the game he loved. For the British-born Sarama, who on 28 October was named the head coach of the WNBA’s newest expansion team, the Portland Fire, people doubted him before he even put two sentences together.“There was a lot of skepticism,” he tells the Guardian. “A lot of coaches heard the accent and they’d say straight away this Alex guy can’t coach!”Sarama, however, would not be dissuaded.“So, it’s been great!” he says with a laugh
Scott Boland reveals uncomfortable truth about standing up to England during Ashes
The unorthodox strategy has proved crucial for the Australians in their Ashes victory this summer, but fast bowler Scott Boland has admitted it has not always been easy – both for his ego and his length – to have wicketkeeper Alex Carey stand up at the stumps.Carey’s proximity to the wickets off the fast bowling of Boland, as well as Michael Neser in the second Test, has prevented England’s batters from standing out of the crease – a key tool in their pre-series plan to unsettle Australia’s bowlers.The tactic has delivered crucial wickets, but beyond the scorecard it has been identified as an important reason England have not been able to impose their will on the series that was lost inside 11 days. And it is only possible due to Carey’s talent with the gloves.Ahead of the Boxing Day Test, Boland said the tweak has been an adjustment for him and something of a blow to his ego, given he is one of the best pacemen in the country and typically bowls close to 140km/h
Wounded England must salvage more than pride in MCG Boxing Day Ashes Test
English cricket meets Spinal Tap as Rob Key delivers latest Ashes autopsy | Barney Ronay
The Breakdown | Chile coach Pablo Lemoine: ‘Rugby is in trouble, even in countries like Wales’
A brutal schedule, merciless crowds and always on the road: is professional darts all it’s cracked up to be?
Pat Cummins out of rest of Ashes series as Australia make two changes for MCG Test
Rob Key to investigate England’s ‘stag do’ drinking habits on Noosa mid-Ashes break