Accel Entertainment, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Asell Entertainment's Q2 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Scott Levin, Chief Legal Officer at Asell. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to Excel Entertainment's second quarter 2026 earnings call. Participating on the call today are Andy Rubenstein, Excel's founder, chairman of the board, and current chief executive officer. Mark Phelan, Excel's president, who is transitioning to chief executive officer later this week, and Brett Summerer, Excel's chief financial officer. Please refer to our website for the press release and supplemental information that will be discussed on this call. Thank you very much. and the company undertakes no obligation to update these statements unless required by law. For a more detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, investors should review the forward-looking statement section of the earnings press release available on our website as well as other risk factors disclosures in our filings with the SEC. Any projected financial information presented in this call is for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon as being predictive of future results. The inclusion of any financial forecast information in this call should not be regarded as a representation by any person that the results reflected in such forecasts will be achieved. During the call, we may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. For reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures as well as other information regarding these measures, Please refer to our earnings release and other materials in the investor relations section of our website. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for a question and answer session. With that, I would now like to introduce Andy.

Please go ahead. Thank you, Scott, and good afternoon, everyone. Excel delivered another strong quarter. Revenue increased 10% year-over-year to $368 million. and many more. We believe these strong results reflect the durability of our distributed gaming model, the strength and ongoing growth of our largest market, and growing contributions from our developing markets. More importantly, they reflect another quarter of thoughtful execution across the business and the success of the strategy we've been following for several years, which has positioned us as an industry leader in distributed gaming. Turning to our markets, Illinois remains the foundation of our business and delivered another impressive quarter. Revenue from our Illinois distributed gaming operations, excluding Fairmont Park, increased 6% year over year, driven by sustained improvement in hold per day and a high-performing customer mix, with average location hold per day increasing 9% year-over-year to $992. Importantly, those results were achieved while both our location count and our terminal count declined modestly in Illinois. That is precisely the outcome our strategy is designed to produce. We are not managing this business to maximize machine count. We're managing it to maximize revenue and profitability per location, and our results reflect that. At Fairmont Park, the investment thesis is playing out as expected. Customer engagement continues to ramp, and the property delivered its highest quarterly gross profit since we acquired it, which represents 33% growth compared to the second quarter of last year. Table games and slots continue to gain traction. and our second racing season is underway. We remain committed to developing a permanent casino at the property and our planning around the scope and timing of that investment continues to advance. We plan to provide additional details on this exciting development over the next quarter or two. Chicago remains one of our most significant near-term growth opportunities and I want to provide an update on where things stand. Beginning in June, the Illinois Gaming Board issued the first establishment licenses for video gaming locations in the city of Chicago, followed by a second round in July. Excel has already been approved for 17 of the 39, or approximately 44%, of establishments licensed in the city, reaffirming our position as the statewide market leader. The next step is with the city of Chicago itself. The city's Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection has now begun accepting and processing applications for city video gaming licenses. Once a location receives its city license, the gaming board permits the terminal operator to connect to the state's central communication systems and go live. There have been some delays along the way, but based on where the process stands today, Thank you for joining us. Outside of Illinois, we continue to build momentum in our developing markets. Nebraska and Georgia both delivered exceptional double-digit revenue growth and are becoming meaningful drivers of Excel's overall earnings growth, not simply contributors to revenue growth. Elsewhere across our footprint, in Louisiana, we completed the acquisition of Rice Palace Truck Stop Casino during the quarter, and our pipeline remains active and Attractive. In Nevada, last month we announced a new route agreement with Green Valley Grocery. This extends our relationship with Inavi Oil, adding approximately 600 terminals across southern Nevada, further expanding the platform we established earlier this year through our Rebel partnership. With Green Valley and Rebel, we have over 1,000 terminals with Inavi Oil and are excited to continue our partnership with them. During the second quarter, we continued to execute our disciplined capital allocation strategy. We repurchased approximately 500,000 shares for $5.6 million, while ending the quarter with approximately $255 million of cash and net debt of approximately $318 million, representing net leverage of approximately 1.4 times. At the same time, our $300 million revolving credit facility Thank you for watching. Our customers visit neighborhood bars, restaurants, truck stops, and convenience stores as part of their everyday routines. And that behavior has proven resilient across a variety of economic environments. Finally, I'd like to say a few words about our leadership transition. This will be my final quarterly earnings call as Chief Executive Officer. Later this week, on August 7th, Mark will become CEO while I continue on as chairman. We also recently promoted Stan Giedros to chief operating officer. Stan built Toucan into one of the premier operators in Louisiana, and he brings that same operational discipline, focus on growth, and leadership to our broader organization. I am very confident in the strength of our leadership team and the future of this company. I believe Accel is strongly positioned for its next chapter, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside Mark, Stan, Brett, Scott, and the rest of our leadership team as chairman. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark.