Illinois is out of room for machines — and still earning more

Every month we pull the Illinois Gaming Board’s published figures and look at what they say about the market as a whole. No opinions, no projections — just the state’s own numbers, arranged so they answer a question an owner or an operator actually has.

Here’s what June says.

Illinois has essentially run out of places to put a machine

Across the state, 8,597 locations reported income in June, running 49,085 terminals between them. That’s 5.71 machines per location, against a legal maximum of six.

A year ago the figure was 5.67. In twelve months, the average Illinois location added four hundredths of a machine.

That number is the whole story of this market right now. Capacity is spoken for. Whatever growth is left doesn’t come from adding cabinets to venues that already have them.