JD Wetherspoon has issued a response to claims published by the Financial Times that the pub group is making “more from gambling than food,” stating that machines across its 800-strong estate accounted for just 3.4 percent of sales in 2025, with food sales more than ten times larger.
JD Wetherspoon has responded to an article published by the Financial Times that claimed revenue from the pub group’s “casino-style” gaming machines was higher than that generated by food sales, dismissing the suggestion as “wildly out of kilter.”
In its rebuttal to equities reporter Bryce Elder’s assessment, Wetherspoon said that though machines did account for 3.4 percent of sales in 2025, food sales were 11 times higher than that figure, while food gross profit was 10.2 times higher.
“How did Mr Elder make this egregious error?” asked the company. “It appears that he has allocated all Wetherspoon’s costs and overheads, other than fruit machine rentals, to bar, food and hotel rooms. You don’t need to be J.K. Galbraith, Milton Friedman, or even Rachel Reeves, to regard this as voodoo economics.”
“Without all the other costs of the business, and without the customers they attract, there could be no fruit machine income, so, logically, the machines have to bear their share of overheads.”
In his article, Elder also stated that machines are a “useful source of growth” for Wetherspoon, a claim which was also disputed in the response.
“Wetherspoon’s machine sales, reflecting the general experience of the pub industry, have decreased from about 7 percent of sales at our 1992 stock market flotation, to 6 per cent in 2000, to 3.4 percent today, even if there have been some years of growth during that period.”
Though the disagreement appears to have reached an impasse for now, SBC News noted that the financial argument “may well extend beyond a debate over Wetherspoons’ accounts,” particularly as Andy Burnham’s decision to increase business rates on AGCs could raise questions of a “broader gambling clampdown.”
In its response to Elder’s claims, Wetherspoons also highlighted that the government received £18.2m in machine gaming duty from Wetherspoon during its last financial year.
“His hypothesis, that there is a possibility of ‘the profits (machines) generate being relegated to zero’, would come at a high cost to the Treasury, with little evidence of public benefit.”
However, in its own assessment, SBC observed that “it is clearly a case of ‘time will tell’, but as the government pursues a tougher stance on parts of the gambling sector, the question of whether any business profiting from gambling-related products could be impacted has to be one that is brought up.”
‘The Cavalry is coming’… but it’s not you leading the charge Mr Burnham, it’s the gaming machines sector
It’s an unusual spat: the UK’s biggest pub operator facing up to the world’s number one financial paper. And yet it’s difficult to work out whether they’re actually both on the same side.
Last week, the FT did a deep dive into Spoons’ gaming machine revenues and drew an odd conclusion that its Cat C returns were larger than their food figures.
Despite the graphs and detailed analysis, it’s clearly not correct. And Tim Martin jumped in and gave the paper a sophisticated bar-brawling kick-in.
Spoons, and with fair reason, saw the article as an attack on the pub sector for its machines income – timed as it was for when the new Prime Minister was verbally slaughtering gaming machines on the high street in his now familiar evangelical, I know better than all of you, moralistic, me, me, me tone.
The FT, as one would expect, stood by its work – defiantly – but was it for reasons other than the one Spoons and most of us all thought?
Spoons are clearly sore, as they should be. But, are they just a convenient pawn in the financial sector’s posture jockeying over Burnham’s economic capabilities?
Already, there are some suggesting the FT focus was a god-sent timely attempt to zone in on Burnham’s anti-gambling machine vibe – and draw attention to the embarrassing irony of the new PM supporting pubs with a business rates cut, while it’s his bete noir gaming machines that are actually keeping many pubs alive.
That existential reality will hurt the PM. But for the business-focused FT, this exercise would be a skilful, incisive attack on Burnham’s style of policy-making. He speaks off the cuff about the bond market and makes instant policy statements such as business rate cuts for pubs – but they’re all driven by ideology rather than economics, and certainly not thought through.
The business media definitely doesn’t like what personal ideology does to market confidence, and neither does the high street gambling and hospitality sector.
In this instance, Burnham has bragged about his role as saviour of the high street pub; it’s gonna feel like a crucifiction when someone tells him that it’s the highly regulated, age verified, safer gambling, warning signed gaming machines that are actually playing that role.
Burnham seems determined to raise business rates on high street gaming machines to fund a business rates life-line to pubs. When pubs realise he’s taking 10 or 20 times the amount of money away from them than the £1,100 a year he’s giving them, he too might find himself banned from many pubs much like his predecessor.
For the centrist FT, that’s an economic irony that undermines the Labour leader’s high street plan.
And that opens the all-important economic argument that No 10 and No 11 Downing Street will need to navigate their way around. Spoons may well have been dragged to a media party that they never wanted to go to, but their centre-stage role in the machines debate highlights one of the most important realities of every pub, bingo hall, working men’s club and, dare we say it, AGC.
Machines are a vital part of the pub offering, and even more so WMCs, social clubs, bingo halls and AGCs – all of which are the heart and soul of working class leisure options.
And irony of ironies, particularly for Burnham, is that the very tightly restricted and regulated gaming machines provide a far greater lifeline and survival plan for pubs than his £1,100 business rate cut could ever do.
And worse still, pubs don’t have to wait til April 2027 for their machine returns. The big picture lesson in this sideline skirmish between Wetherspoons and the FT is that without those gaming machine receipts, between 100-200 pubs won’t even make it to their next business rates bill.
On one point, Burnham’s absolutely right, the cavalry it coming. But it ain’t you leading the charge on your white horse Andy, it’s the gaming machines sector.
And every pub, working men’s club, social club, bingo hall and AGC on the UK high street knows that your tiny token gesture of £1,100 a year to a pub will do nothing compared to what a highly regulated, face recognition, play controlled gaming machine can bring to a high street venue.
Originally published on Coinslot on August 4, 2026. Republished with permission.