It’s early in the 2019 North Dakota deer application
period, which makes this a good time to explain the deer lottery process. Even
though the details haven’t changed much in the last decade, I and many of my
colleagues at the North Dakota Game and Fish Department still get a fair number
of questions as the deadline approaches.
How the Lottery
Works
If you apply in the deer gun license lottery and do not receive your first
license choice in any given year, you receive a bonus point that will improve
your odds of drawing a first-choice license the next year. You do not have to
apply in the same unit, or for the same deer type each year, to qualify.
Each year you apply and do not receive your first
license choice, you get an additional bonus point. You maintain your
accumulated bonus points as long as you apply in the first drawing at least
once every two years.
For points one through three, you are entered in the drawing two times the
number of points you have. So, if you have two points you would get four
additional chances to be drawn, compared to a person who got his or her first
choice the previous year. If you’re both competing for the same license, you
have five chances, he or she has one.
When you accumulate four or more points, the number of additional chances is
determined by cubing your bonus points. So, when you have four points, you will
be in the drawing 64 additional times, 125 times if you have five points, and
so on.
Each drawing is still random, but the more bonus points you have, the better
your odds. When you receive your first license choice, you lose your bonus
points and start over.
Using deer hunting unit 2B, a large unit near the population
centers of Grand Forks and Fargo as an example, here’s how that scenario played
out in 2018 for hunters applying for an any antlered deer as a first choice:
972 hunters with zero bonus points applied for an any antlered deer license and
11 were successful in drawing a license (1.1 percent); 882 hunters with one
bonus point, applied and 36 were successful (4 percent).
On the upper end, 16 people with six points applied,
and 11 of those were successful (69 percent). This indicates the system is
working, as hunters who have waited the longest to get a license have a much
better chance than someone who had a license the previous year.
No amount of points, however, guarantee you’ll draw a
preferred deer license. And on the opposite end, if you had that license last
year, you’ll still have a chance this year even though odds are stacked against
you. It can happen.
Anyone with a deep interest in the odds for drawing a
first choice license in last year’s lottery can review a detailed chart on the
Game and Fish website at
https://gf.nd.gov/licensing/lotteries/summary
.
