How to read your DrawWise results

Your preference points

The points you’ve saved for the species, as shown in your CPW account. Every result is worked out for that number.

Resident or nonresident

CPW reports each group’s results separately, and the groups compete under different limits. We only show results for the group you pick.

Your goal (the plan only)

Hardest tag I can draw, Hunt this year or Hunt most years. It changes the order we weigh the options in, never the results we read.

Preference point

You earn one when your first choice doesn’t draw, or when you apply with the point-only code: a first choice (for elk, E-P-999-99-P) that earns a point without trying for a license. CPW removes that code in 2028. In today’s draw, most first-choice licenses go in order of preference points, most first. CPW also caps the share of each hunt’s licenses nonresidents can draw (see the nonresident allocation), and in its most sought-after hunts it draws part of the licenses at random among first-choice applicants with enough points.

Hunt code

CPW’s name for one hunt, such as E-M-003-O1-R. We show it beside a plainer name: the unit, season, weapon, and which animals the license is for (for elk: bull, antlerless or either sex).

First choice and later choices

You can list up to four hunts. Only your first choice uses your preference points. Second, third and fourth choices neither use nor earn them.

Cutoff

The point level where CPW’s preference-point draw for a hunt ran out, in one draw, for your applicant group. CPW’s report lists it for each hunt and year. In hunts where CPW also draws some licenses at random, a few applicants with fewer points can draw too.

At the cutoff

Your points equal the cutoff. Not everyone with exactly that many points always draws: CPW breaks the tie with random numbers (a tiebreak), and its report counts how many drew.

Later choices and leftover licenses

For some hunts, CPW’s report for your group shows licenses reaching second, third or fourth choices, or left over after the draw, instead of a points cutoff. That doesn’t show that everyone who put the hunt first drew, and we don’t say it does.

The latest draw and the next draw

Your plan reads CPW’s most recent published draw, and the plan also reads the earlier draws we hold. Each result names the year it comes from. The next draw is the one you’d apply in next. Anything about the next draw or later is an estimate or a scenario, and it’s labeled as one.

Enter your points and we sort every hunt with a result for your group in CPW’s latest draw into three lists. Hunts where nobody in your group applied, or nobody drew, aren’t listed. Cards can also show a next-year estimate (see next-year estimates).

A hunt’s name opens its own page: CPW’s results for your group year by year, how many applicants put it first at each point level in the latest draw, and the nonresident share. On its trend line, a hollow dot marks a year with no points cutoff.

Likely draw

Listed under You’d likely draw. In the latest draw the hunt took fewer points than you have, took exactly your total with every applicant in your group at that total drawing, or had licenses reach later choices or be left over. It describes the latest draw, and a hunt can get harder from one year to the next.

At the cutoff

Listed under At the cutoff. The hunt took exactly your point total, and CPW’s report doesn’t show everyone at that total drawing. The card gives CPW’s count, such as 3 of 11 nonresident applicants with 6 points drew in 2026, or says the report has no count. That count is what happened then, not your odds: how many draw next time depends on how many people apply and how many licenses the hunt offers.

Needs more points

Listed under Need more points, closest first. The hunt took more points than you have, and the card says how many you were short in the latest draw.

High confidence

At least five draws decided by points, a steady trend, and a license count that stayed within about 15%. Not used for nonresident estimates before 2028 (see above).

Medium confidence

At least three such draws and a fairly steady trend, with license counts that stayed within about 30% when we have them.

Low confidence

Anything less: few years, a jumpy history, or big swings in license numbers. Always low when the next draw falls under new rules.

Path A: Use your points now

Up to three hunts your points clear with room to spare, hardest first. If none do, up to three hunts right at their cutoff. Private-land-only hunts can appear here, labeled; we never name one as the answer. Each hunt shows our reason, CPW’s count at the cutoff when that applies, and a line such as 6 points would have been above the cutoff in 5 of the 6 draws on record, and right at it in 1. That compares your points with each past cutoff. It’s a history, not a probability: those draws didn’t include your application. Its lines about 2028 are explained under what changes in 2028.

Path B: Save your points

A line such as +1 point: 4 more hunts in reach counts the hunts one more point would put above the cutoff we expect, in the results on record. The +3 points line does the same for three more. Both measure against today’s expected cutoffs, so if cutoffs climb as fast as your points, the extra points buy nothing. Private-land-only hunts aren’t counted.

Path C: Try for a hunt and save your points

Hunts to list second, behind the point-only code. Licenses for each reached later choices or were left over in at least four of the draws we hold, including the latest one. CPW doesn’t publish second-choice odds, so that’s history, not a promise.

More on this hunt

Extra detail for one hunt, such as the nonresident allocation CPW published for it (see nonresident allocation).

From 2028, for deer, elk, bear, pronghorn and turkey, CPW splits each hunt’s licenses: about half by preference points and about half by a random draw (the plan also calls it the bonus draw or the random half), where each application gets one ticket per point plus one. The point-only code goes away. Nobody knows yet who will apply under the new rules, so the plan labels each 2028 figure for what it is:

Tickets

With 6 points you hold 7 tickets. If you draw and keep a first-choice license, your points go to zero, which leaves you 1 ticket: 7 bonus tickets become 1. Under today’s rules, a license drawn as a second, third or fourth choice doesn’t use your points, so it doesn’t lower your tickets. More tickets isn’t the same as better odds, because nobody knows how many tickets everyone else will hold.

The 50/50 illustration

A line such as If 2028 offered the same 40 licenses as 2026, CPW’s 50/50 rule would put 20 on the points side and 20 in the random draw. The rule is CPW’s. The license count is the hunt’s count from a past draw, and 2028’s will differ.

After 2028

For a hunt decided by points: harder, by an amount we can’t size. About half the licenses leave the points side, so if the same people apply, its points cutoff can only rise or stay put. For a hunt whose licenses reached later choices or were left over: no change expected, because there has been no points cutoff to raise, though more applicants could change that. Either way it’s a direction, never a number.

Nonresident allocation

Today CPW caps nonresidents at up to 20% of a hunt’s licenses when residents needed 6 or more points on average over the three draws it looks back on, and up to 25% otherwise; CPW prints other figures, such as 100%, for some hunts. Under a hunt, the plan shows the percentage CPW printed in that hunt’s newest Draw Recap, with its year, and nothing else: not the number CPW prints beside it, which counts licenses drawn, and not a share for the next draw, which can differ. When we don’t have CPW’s figure, the plan says Nonresident allocation: not verified. We don’t work the figure out ourselves, because we haven’t confirmed how CPW counts resident years with no points cutoff. From 2028 CPW’s rules set 25% for every hunt, but CPW’s published changes also limit how much of that can sit in the points half, so we don’t say a hunt’s share improves.

Every plan ends with this list, in full, so you never have to look for what we can’t tell you.

• Who will apply in 2028. Our 2028 replays reuse the most recent applicants. They aren't a forecast of who turns up.
• How many tickets everyone else holds in the 2028 random half. Nobody can know this before people apply.
• Draw odds for second, third and fourth choices. CPW doesn't publish them.
• Harvest, success rates and antler quality. We don't have any, so we never rank by quality.
• What a license costs. We don't have license fee data yet.
• What a preference point will cost from 2028. CPW's rules add a point fee for these species then, but the amount isn't set yet.
• How CPW's draw program runs the 2028 random half. The rule is published (one entry per point, plus one), but the program itself isn't.
• Whether the applicant pool grows or shrinks once the point-only code disappears in 2028.
• 2021 and 2022 were pandemic-distorted application years across the West. We don't correct for that, and we can't detect it.

No usable record

In every year we hold, nobody in your group applied or nobody drew. The plan gives the count and ranks none of them.

Nothing current for your group

In the most recent draws, nobody in your group drew the hunt or applied for it, or our newest result for your group is from an older draw. Older results can’t say what the hunt takes now, so the plan doesn’t suggest or count it, and says how many it left out. Your plan doesn’t list these hunts.

Too little, or mixed, history

Fewer than three usable draws (draws decided by points or, for hunts never decided by points, years when licenses reached later choices or were left over), or draws decided by points mixed with years when licenses reached later choices or were left over. The plan doesn’t rank these.

Private land only

CPW requires landowner permission before you apply, so we never name one as our answer, never offer one as a second choice, and don’t count them in “more hunts in reach”. They can still appear in Path A, labeled.

CPW’s Drawn Out At report

For each hunt and applicant group, the cutoff (or a note that licenses reached later choices or were left over) and how many applicants at the cutoff drew.

CPW’s Draw Recap report

How many licenses each hunt offered, how many each group drew, and how many first-choice applicants held each number of points.

Both are published with CPW’s draw statistics for each species (for elk, CPW’s elk statistics (opens in a new tab) and for deer, CPW’s deer statistics (opens in a new tab)), and every result names the draw year it comes from. DrawWise isn’t part of CPW and never applies for you. Rules and numbers change every year, so check CPW’s brochure before you apply.