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Montana returns nothing, and so does every state it touches. Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota are all blank, which makes Montana one of five states in the lower 48 with no placement in any bordering state — and part of a contiguous region of fourteen empty states.
Figures below come from the 87 signed listings open on PinPoint Vending’s marketplace on October 5, 2026, covering 29 states. Traffic is venue-reported and unaudited; no listing reports sales.
By the numbers
| Measure | Montana |
|---|---|
| Signed placements | 0 |
| States with none | 21 of 50 |
| Bordering states with placements | 0 of 4 |
| Venue types represented | 0 of 26 |
| Nearest state with a placement | Washington and Wisconsin, 2 states away |
| National median share, for reference | 40% of net |
The record’s blank spaces are one shape, not twenty-one
Most writing about a dataset like this treats empty states as a list. They are better read as a map, because fourteen of the 21 form a single connected region.
| The contiguous empty region | |
|---|---|
| Pacific Northwest and interior | Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming |
| Northern Plains | North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska |
| Upper Midwest edge | Minnesota, Iowa |
| Mountain and Southwest | Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico |
Those fourteen run unbroken from the Pacific Northwest to the Mississippi and down to the Mexican border. The remaining seven empty states are scattered and unrelated: Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Indiana.
So the dataset is not thin in the West generally — California holds seven placements and Washington one. It is thin in the interior, and the gap is continuous rather than patchy.
Which states have no placement next door either
Five, and four of them are adjacent to each other.
| State | Bordering states | All empty? |
|---|---|---|
| Montana | Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota | Yes |
| Wyoming | Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota | Yes |
| North Dakota | Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota | Yes |
| South Dakota | North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota | Yes |
| Utah | Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada | Yes |
Alaska and Hawaii have no land borders at all, and the company states it does not serve them — a different kind of absence, and the only one in the dataset with a published explanation.
Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas form a block in which nothing within a state’s reach has been signed. For an operator reading this as a market map rather than a record, that is the single largest unworked area in the dataset.
How much of the blank is explained by population
A fair amount, for Montana specifically. On Census Bureau estimates Montana is among the least populous states, so an empty row is roughly what population alone would predict — unlike Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado or Arizona, which are populous, served and still absent.
| Empty state | How surprising |
|---|---|
| Arizona, Minnesota, Indiana, Colorado | Populous and inside stated coverage |
| Oregon, Utah, Nevada | Mid-sized |
| Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island | Small — close to what population predicts |
| Alaska, Hawaii | Stated as outside coverage |
That distinction is worth keeping because it separates two different findings. Montana’s zero is mostly a population story. The surrounding four-state block of zeroes is not, because the block includes Colorado and Minnesota.
What the Washington listing offers as a substitute
The nearest comparison available, and it is a single venue: an indoor playground in Kennewick, Washington, reporting 140 visitors a day, at 40% of net. At an indoor playground’s 1.5-hour published visit length that converts to about 210 visitor-hours a day, which places it mid-table among the 44 convertible listings — the method is set out in our ranking of vending locations.
One venue two states away is a weak proxy and the best one on offer. It is consistent with the national picture rather than distinctive: 55 of 87 placements agreed 40%, and Kennewick is one of them.
What a first interior placement would establish
Whether the service economics work at interior distances. Every placement in this record sits in a state with either a metro cluster or a short drive between venues; nothing tests a route where consecutive venues are two or three hours apart.
Montana is the natural test case because its licensing is the cheapest in this series — an $85 state food licence priced by staffing rather than machine count, and no general state sales tax — while its driving is the most expensive. No listing anywhere in the dataset has that combination, so the question stays open. What the revenue-share data shows across all 87 placements goes past Montana to the full distribution, and vending machine locations by state shows where each state stands.
Frequently asked questions
How many vending machine placements does Montana have?
None. Montana is one of 21 states with no signed venue in the record collected on October 5, 2026, which covers 87 placements across 29 states.
Is Montana’s blank row surprising?
Less than Minnesota’s or Arizona’s. Montana is among the least populous states on Census Bureau estimates, so an empty row is close to what population alone would predict.
What is genuinely unusual about it?
The neighbourhood. Every state bordering Montana is also empty, which is true of only five states in the lower 48 — Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah.
Where is the nearest placement?
Washington and Wisconsin, each two states away. Washington has one listing, an indoor playground in Kennewick at 140 visitors a day and 40% of net.
Does the empty region mean the West is unserved?
It means one locator did not sign there in one 2026 season. California has seven placements and Washington one, so the coast is not blank — the interior is.
