Love's Travel Stop # 351
Your performance · August 2026
The four numbers operators read first
Against locations your size (4–5 terminals, 1,547 of them), your NTI/machine is +$9,378/mo vs the $2,240 peer median — bucketing by size keeps a small bar from being measured against a big one.
Where the money goes (August 2026)
Illinois law fixes the after-tax split at 50/50 and bans any deviation (230 ILCS 40/25(c)) — about $18,880 to you and $18,880 to your operator this month. Neither side can move that split. That's the whole point of The Gameset: with the split set by statute, operators compete for your gameset on service — games, cabinets, refresh cadence, response time.
Where your gameset stands
Strong demand and a healthy hold — your gameset is doing well on both the traffic and the margin side.
What an operator sees: An operator reads this as a proven, high-value gameset and will compete hard on service to win it.
Each gray dot is another North Utica gameset for the same month, shown without identity. The dashed lines are the statewide medians — which quadrant you land in is the positioning above, drawn out.
Trend
Cycle rate is a leading indicator: when players start cycling their money fewer times, it usually shows up here before it shows up in NTI — an early read on gameset health for you and for an operator.
These are the two series a service change shows up in. Fresher titles and faster response tend to move win per unit first; hold follows the game mix. Both are your own numbers against a neutral market line — not a verdict on anyone.
A month that looks like a collapse is often just that month. Laid over the same months a year earlier, a seasonal dip and a real decline stop looking alike.
Seasonality check: July → August moved +65% this year vs +9% a year ago — so a normal seasonal dip isn't mistaken for a real decline.
Your town's market
North Utica's total gaming income is +19% year over year (trailing 3 months vs the same 3 a year ago).
Your own gameset is +18% over the same-month-last-year comparison — the town's tide explains part of the move; it isn't all your gameset.
A deeper operator read
The same history, cut the way a Terminal Operator cuts it when they decide how hard to compete for your gameset.
Your operator
Linked to your Location as of August 2026 — the Illinois Gaming Board publishes this each month, so a recent change may not show yet.
Year over year
Your NTI is −15% down year over year, trailing the LaSalle County market (+4%).
Takeaways
A gameset doing these numbers is the one Operators compete hardest for — and most owners never find out what that competition is worth, because they never put it out to bid.
Full August 2026 report detail
Source: Illinois Gaming Board monthly video gaming reports. This is public data about your own licensed Location, shown for informational purposes.