Sorry Nemont but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Sure the true odds may be under the 60% that the state reports but it doesn't math out to anywhere close to 12%. It could be closer to the 53% that remington84 mentioned but I doubt if the odds are much under that.

In 2005, 16,121 people applied for 10,482 available Big Game Combo Licenses (Deer/Elk Combo - This is different from the 11,500 listed because some people apply for an elk only license - I'm not sure how those work into the statistics).

That means that if every one of them bought a preference point then there would be 5,639 folks with a preference point going into the next year.

In 2006 17,731 people applied for 10,519 available Big Game Combo Licenses. Let's assume that every single person that appliedin 2005had a preference point and then applied again in 2006. That would be 5,639 of the 17,731 so 12,092 would have no preference points and 5,639 would have twice the chance of being drawn. So the newcomers would have 12,092 out of 23,370 chances or 51.7%.

Of course every single person isn't buying a preference point and every single unsuccessful applicant isn't applying the next year, but there are some folks that would miss out getting drawn 2 years in a row and would go into the 3rd year with 3 chances of getting drawn and I would say they would about make up for the difference. Statistically if you are buying preference points and aren't drawnin the first 3 years you are VERY unlucky, I figure it over a 95% success ratein 3 years if you are buying the preference points.

I would say about a 50% chance of getting drawn is pretty reasonable. 12% might be right for the Deer license because there are considerably more unsuccessful applicants for the deer license each year and fewer tags to begin with.

My 2 cents. Nathan