Submitted Photo Deer applications will go live in mid-May for the 2025 deer gun season and the deadline is midnight on Wednesday, June 4. Photo by Ashley Peterson, NDGF.

I’ve long appreciated the fact that in North Dakota we can talk about deer and deer hunting any time of year.

While fall discussions typically revolve around the deer numbers and the coming hunt, this time of year there’s plenty to discuss about the state’s deer lottery. Of note, there’s no real preference to the points given to each applicant. A point is a point is a point. Whether it’s one or 125. The point is your number in the lottery. The more points you have the better your odds “weigh.” At no point is there a guarantee.

How the lottery works

Using deer as the example, though turkey works the same way, this is how it works.

If you fail to draw your first license choice in any given year, you receive a bonus point.

You do not have to apply in the same unit, or for the same deer type each year, to qualify.

You get an additional bonus point each year you apply and do not receive your first license choice. You maintain your accumulated bonus points as long as you apply in the first drawing at least once every two years. You receive additional chances in the drawing for each bonus point accumulated.

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.

Bonus points are accumulated if you do not draw your first license choice and apply in the first drawing at least every other year. You do not receive bonus points in years you do not apply.

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. Bonus points can only be earned, or used, in the first drawing for each species in each year.

The license lottery consists of four separate drawings, one for each choice on the application.

First, we hold a drawing for the first unit/first deer choice. When those are issued, we draw for the first unit/second deer choice, then the second unit/first deer choice, and finally the second unit/second deer choice.

While more than 3,000 fewer licenses were made available for the deer gun season in 2024, the process remained the same to draw a license. The format used to present the results of the deer drawing — plus drawings for pronghorn and spring and fall turkey — is consistent with the last four years.

Using deer hunting unit 2J1 for any antlered deer as an example, the numbers read like this: 668 hunters with zero bonus points applied for an any antlered deer license and 158 were successful in drawing a license (158/668); 480 hunters with one bonus point applied and 273 were successful (273/480); 162 hunters with two bonus points applied and 114 were successful (114/162); and on it goes.

The results in the 2024 deer gun lottery show only those hunters who were in the drawing, not those hunters who bought bonus points and had no intention of hunting deer last fall.

The deer applications will go live in mid-May for the 2025 deer gun season and the deadline is midnight Wednesday, June 4.

If you’re feeling lucky and want to make sure you have the deer opener off, put in your vacation for Friday, November 7.

2024 Lottery Stats Summary

Deer

– 75,874 – Number of people – not including 12,170 gratis applicants – who applied for deer gun lottery licenses, up from 75,117 in 2023.

– 39.04 – Percent of successful applicants, excluding gratis and nonresidents, for deer gun and muzzleloader licenses.

– 21 – Maximum number of bonus points for any applicant (nonresident mule deer buck applicants).

– 13,947 – Applicants with four or more bonus points.

– 12.10 – Percent of applicants with four or more bonus points.

– 54.54 – Percent of applicants with four or more bonus points who applied for a muzzleloader buck license.

2024 lottery notes

The number of deer gun licenses made available to hunters:

– 2016 – 49,000 deer gun licenses.

– 2017 – 54,500 deer gun licenses.

– 2018 – 55,150 deer gun licenses.

– 2019 – 65,500 deer gun licenses.

– 2020 – 69,050 deer gun licenses.

– 2021 – 72,200 deer gun licenses.

– 2022 – 64,200 deer gun licenses.

– 2023 – 53,400 deer gun licenses.

– 2024 – 50,100 deer gun licenses.

Drawing a buck license in 2024 was not easy. Randy Meissner, Game and Fish Department licensing manager, said after 11,919 resident gratis licenses and 501 nonresident licenses were subtracted from the overall license allocation, just 19,927 buck licenses were available for the 62,471 hunters who applied for them as their first choice in the lottery.