New Mexico Drawing Odds

[Corax]

Get comfortable for this one.

NMDGF posts a complete draw summary each year.

http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/hunting/applications-and-draw-information/how-new-mexico-draw-works/

Go to the Odds and Reports tab, then the 2016 Drawing Odds Complete Report. You can download an excel file with a summary for each hunt code.

For non-resident, unguided hunters, the following were the 2016 results for hunt code DER-1-284 unit 34 deer (picked at random - sorry if this is your secret unit):
1st choice: 68 applied, 37 drew (54%)
2nd choice: 57 applied, 6 drew (11%)
3rd choice: 39 applied, 1 drew (3%)

NMDGF claims that when they pick your name out of the hat, they check all three of your choices before moving on to the next hunter. I may not be much of a statistician, but if the draw goes as they say it does, whether you put a specific unit down as your 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice should be irrelevant to the odds of drawing that unit. For the draw odds to decrease from 1st to 3rd choice means to me that they are looking at everyones 1st choice before moving on to the second choices, etc.

In other words, if I put glory units down as my first and second choices, I am ruining my chance of drawing a reasonable unit as my 3rd choice.

I have been applying in NM on and off for over 10 years, and it has always been this way. How they manage the draw does not affect the number of elk, but it can sure affect my draw strategy.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here?

 

[Khunter]

looks right to me to see lower draw success in 2nd and 3rd choices. what are you questioning?
if i draw my first choice for a different unit but have this one as my 2nd chouce then I get logged as failing to draw my 2nd choice and thus I made 2nd choice show lower draw odds.

 

[Corax]

Thanks. I was assuming that draw odds were only generated where there was an actual trial.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Yep, I think you're barking up the wrong tree, as you put it. Under the code you put up there appears to have been a total of 44 tags up for grabs. If they looked at everyone's first choice like most states do, rather than the way they do it by looking at all three when your number comes up, then all of those tags would have gone to the first choice applicants and there wouldn't have been any tags available for the second and third choice applicants.

 

[WapitiBob]

There is no easy way to accurately calculate NM odds because the tag pool is dynamic and changes every time a tag is drawn. The guy in front of you may draw his third choice, the last tag for unit 34 Deer, and if it's your 1st choice your odds went to zero. Your example above shows simple odds for each choice which one way to do it but it's not your true odds.

That said, you can buy the database that shows when each tag is drawn, work some magic on the numbers and come up with a draw scenario. I have seen it posted on MM but the guys name escapes me...

 

[toprut]

I've actually got the database of all NM applicants and their choices, along with the choice drawn if successful, and am testing a draw simulation program that I wrote that essentially follows the NM draw process as they describe it. I'm going to run a few thousand simulations and then publish the results (Arizona and Utah too). For me it's more of an intellectual curiosity as I realized long ago that luck is the biggest factor in drawing a + tag - especially as a non-resident. But any perceived edge we can get is worth the research brain damage I think. It's a long winter after all.

 

[npaden]

Looks like a lot of folks may have drawn their 1st or 2nd choice before it got to their third choice for that unit. I've seen some units that have more 3rd choice applicants drawn than 1st choice applicants. Look at some of the antlerless tags. If you look at the hard to draw units there will be very few people drawing on their 2nd or 3rd choices. As far as unit 34, Not many people are going to put that unit as their first choice unless they live there or know it pretty well. It really is a waste of a 1st choice. There are a lot of folks that don't really understand how the draw works.

 

[Big Fin]

goHUNT.com has run a Monte Carlo Simulation of 100K+ renditions. It is as close at it can get for each of the choices you have, in the order you might choose them. Even at that, with the Monte Carlo Simulation, it is only the likelihood of an outcome. There will always be plenty of outliers to the actually results when dealing with a database of tens of thousands of applicants.