But it is understood Coles intends to hold onto its Liquorland, First Choice Liquor and Vintage Cellars bottle shops, and is working through ways to get around Queensland's laws to make this possible.

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Coles' liquor sales make up about 10 per cent of its gross annual sales, Morgan Stanley estimates, or close to $4 billion.

The supermarket has about 3000 poker machines in venues in Queensland and South Australia, which are estimated to take in about $185 million a year.

Asked about the future of its pubs in February, Wesfarmers' managing director Rob Scott said the company was "considering our options around future ownership models of that business".

Matthew Jones, general manager of Brisbane-based licensing consultants Liquor and Gaming Specialists, said Coles receiving the benefit of operating bottle shops in Queensland without owning pubs "would appear to be quite contrary to the fairly clear intentions expressed in the legislation".

“However, when you put it all in the normal commercial context - the way deals are done and the way these things can be structured - it might be challenging, but there are ways it can be possibly achieved," Mr Jones said.

“You could imagine a situation where Coles ostensibly has parted with the pubs and the bottle shops but in the background there was some other kind of deal that they were still receiving the benefit from the operations of the bottle shops."

Chad Slater, joint chief investment officer at Morphic Asset Management, which has screened out Wesfarmers on "environmental, social and governance" grounds, said an assessment of a "pokies-free" Coles as a potential investment would look at whether it had only "technically" divested.

"Using a workaround - that would be frowned upon," he said.

Alliance for Gambling Reform spokesman Stephen Mayne said Coles divesting from its gambling assets would give it a significant differential to Woolworths, which through its AHL joint venture is Australia's largest owner of poker machines with more than 12,000 in venues across the country.

“For Wesfarmers to say ‘this is too toxic for us to remain in there’, absolutely further puts pressure on Woolworths to divest, which is what they should do," Mr Mayne said.

He said Queensland licensing laws had always been a “ridiculous excuse” for the two supermarkets owning poker machines, especially Woolworths, which had thousands outside of that state.

Woolworths could not comment by deadline.

The potential sale of Coles' pubs business comes ahead of its listing as an independent company on the ASX later this year, part of a radical reshaping of the Wesfarmers portfolio under Mr Scott.