Playbooks
What you actually do with the data.
Six concrete moves an operator can run with FloorRadar's validated market intelligence. Every playbook names the signal to look for, the action to take, and what to expect. No "use this to make better decisions" hand-waving.
Tier required:
Pro
Multi / Group
Acquirer add-on
Catch your own bad month early
The signal
Your NTI drops 10% or more in a single month while your municipality's total holds steady or grows.
The move
Investigate the last 30 days at your venue, not the market. Common causes: staff turnover, machine downtime, a bar policy change (smoking, hours, food menu), a local construction project affecting parking, or a competitor opening that you didn't notice.
What it gets you
Catches operational problems while they're 1 month old, not 6 months old. By the time you'd notice from your own bank deposits, the customer-loss compounding is hard to reverse.
Time your TO contract renewal with the data
The signal
You're 60-90 days out from a terminal-operator contract renewal.
The move
IL VGT terminal-operator contracts are largely standardized — the variable to negotiate is contract length. Pull your last 12-24 months of NTI vs. your municipality average. Top-half performer? Ask for a longer contract at current terms (lock in the relationship). Bottom-half performer? Shop other TOs — a competing TO offering a shorter term is your leverage to keep your current one honest, or to make a clean switch.
What it gets you
Stops you from signing a multi-year contract while you're under-performing — or from letting a strong performer's contract lapse without locking in the relationship.
Know if your promo actually worked
The signal
You ran a promo (giveaway, food special, hours change, marketing spend) in month M. Now you need to know whether it worked.
The move
Compare your funds_in delta vs. the municipality's same-month delta. Outperformed your municipality by >5% = the promo worked. Matched the municipality baseline = the lift was the market, not your promo. Underperformed = the promo cost you.
What it gets you
Stops you running promos that don't actually move your number. Saves the cost (and time) of repeating bad promos. Also shows you which promos work so you can run them again.
Find venues worth approaching
The signal
10% or more traffic drop AND 4-6 VGT count (the state's max-machine cap) within your radius.
The move
These are venues at maximum machine capacity with declining traffic — high-leverage acquisition targets. The owner may be open to a sale, partnership, or absentee-management arrangement. Pull the owner contact info from the Acquirer add-on, write a one-paragraph note, mail or call.
What it gets you
One sourced acquisition can be transformative. The systematic alternative to broker calls and operator-network gossip — you cover venues your network never surfaces.
Catch market-share opportunities the day they happen
The signal
A competitor's NTI goes to zero for 2 or more consecutive months.
The move
Cross-check the regulatory news feed for license actions on that license. If they're suspended or revoked, your market share just expanded — push promos before they reopen, before another competitor notices, or before the customers form new habits at venues farther away.
What it gets you
First-mover wins customer habits. If the competitor doesn't return, your gain is potentially permanent. If they do return, you've still captured 2-6 months of additional traffic at lower customer-acquisition cost than any promo would buy.
Tell market decline from your decline
The signal
Compare your November NTI vs. your previous Novembers AND vs. your municipality's November totals over the same years. (Substitute any month — the principle is YoY same-month comparison against the local market.)
The move
Trailing the muni YoY = retention problem at your venue. Time to invest in marketing, customer experience, or operational fixes. Matching muni decline = the market is shrinking and your strategy needs to be defensive — cut costs, don't chase growth that isn't there.
What it gets you
Catches retention decline 3-6 months before it's obvious from your own numbers alone. Tells you whether the right move is to spend more or to spend less.
You could try to do this yourself. Here's why it doesn't work.
FloorRadar's validated market intelligence is the result of a multi-source pipeline tuned specifically for Illinois VGT — reconciliation, normalization, enrichment, and continuous re-validation against historical baselines. The playbooks above run on that. You could attempt the analysis manually — you'd just spend 20-40 hours a month getting answers FloorRadar gives you in 10 minutes, with quality you'd struggle to verify.