US market is driven by the home user.

Foreign markets are driven by operators.

Gary keeps saying that. But are there recent numbers to back that up?

I think there is way more operators now in US with barcades and pinball renesance than in Europe. European pinball machines are exported to US because they are more expensive where you're at and that is the profit that can't be earned on the route anymore. Look at all those dutch and italian container deals.
I know my poor country is having all A and high B titles exported overseas and pinballs on location earn very little. Looking in european sites and forums it seems it is same there only their citizens have larger wallets, so their prices are between our and US (closer to US prices).

for example: TAF is 1700 EUR game here and $4500 routed in US. no way that game can earn more than couple of 100s eur here at most yearly (100 eur is 488 tokens bought if profit is 50/50 split with the bar owner) without calculating in breakage and repair costs. after taxes and shipping someone selling his TAF oversees makes an easy 1000-2000 EUR on the spot.

I'd guess Gary is making his stats up for the release purposes and that most he sells is to home collectors, probably most of it to US. There is no Nova anymore or large french distributors that buy half the stock at release.

Despite what Gary says, I just don't see how Stern sells more than 20-25% of their machines to operators. I travel a lot for work and am always looking for machines on location. You can typically count the number of any particular game on one hand in major metro areas like LA and Phoenix. And maybe on two hands in hot spots like Chicago, Pittsburgh, NY and Portland. In the south, your lucky to find any machines on location in the whole city, and they are often a single older game. If Stern and JJP sold 500 of each game to operators in the US, that would be about 3,000 spanking new machines on location in just the last 2 years. There's no way they can earn enough in most locations to switch out more often. Either I'm going to the wrong places or they must be machines in a lot of backroad towns.

Do operators buy directly from Stern, or from distributors?
Unless it's from Stern directly, how would Gary have a clue?

Because almost every distribution agreement gives the manufacturer the right to see the final list of customers. They can also typically audit sales price and location.

In NC I know of many new macines sold to home users and there are only a couple places with machines on location. I dont know of any newer Sterns on location.

Look at the pinside map, pick a major city and count the pins that can be played on location and then count the pins that are in the homes of pinsiders. You will notice at least a 10 ratio of home use to operators.