A total of 2,140 moose permits were up for grabs during Saturday’s moose permit lottery. Here’s a look inside the numbers of this year’s lottery:
— A total of 48,865 prospective hunters — 35,062 Maine residents and 13,803 nonresidents—- entered this year’s lottery.
— The odds for a single Mainer to win a permit was 1 in 93. Nonresidents only had a 1-in-1,332 shot at a permit.
— Maine residents are only allowed to purchase one chance in the lottery, but can accrue bonus chances — for each consecutive year they have entered the lottery unsuccessfully. Nonresidents can purchase 1, 3, 6 or unlimited blocks of 10. Mainers and nonresidents are not competing for the same permits, though: By law, nonresident hunters receive just 10 percent of the available permits in each Wildlife Management District.
— Hunters accrue one bonus point per year for the first five years of unsuccessfully entering the lottery. For years 6 through 10, they receive two points per year. For years 11 through 15, that number rises to three per year, and if entrants have been unsuccessful for more than 16 years, they receive 10 points per year above 16.
— The odds for success obviously increase if hunters have accumulated those bonus chances. The maximum number of chances for Maine hunters for this year’s lottery was 61 — one chance that they purchased, and 60 bonus chances because they had entered (and not been drawn) for 18 consecutive years.
— Those hunters who had the maximum 61 chances in the lottery had a 50 percent chance of winning a permit on Saturday. Mainers entering the lottery without bonus chances had just a 1.1 percent chance of winning.
— After winning a permit, hunters must sit out of the next three lotteries. They are, however, allowed to pay the $15 entry fee in order to begin accruing bonus points again. In addition, hunters who will not be available to hunt this year are allowed to enter so that they continue to accumulate bonus points.
— This year, 5,964 people entered the lottery for bonus points only.
