Every fall, one question echoes across coffee shops, group texts, and deer stands from Williston to Wahpeton: How the heck does the state decide who gets a tag?
The honest answer: it’s part chance, part sheer computing muscle.
And this year’s numbers tell the story. More than 72,000 hunters applied for approximately 40,000 tags, with more than 10,000 hunters submitting deer lottery applications on deadline day alone—nearly half in the final six hours before the deadline.
Behind every one of those last-minute clicks are web applications taking in requests, servers processing them, databases validating land and licenses, mapping tools confirming parcels, and monitoring dashboards watching it all in real time.
That system doesn’t run itself. It’s built, tested, and babysat for months by a joint team from North Dakota Game and Fish and North Dakota Information Technology (NDIT)—developers, database administrators, infrastructure engineers, cybersecurity staff (some of which are fellow die-hard hunters)—all working toward one goal: making sure the state’s biggest annual online event doesn’t buckle under pressure.
The deer lottery is one example of how technology quietly supports the services North Dakotans rely on every day,
said Corey Mock, Chief Information Officer for the State of North Dakota. When people can access government services quickly, securely, and without interruption, we’ve done our job.
A Predictable Stampede
Unlike many online services, the deer lottery doesn’t gradually build to peak traffic—it surges like a buck breaking cover.
Knowing that, NDIT and Game and Fish don’t wait for the rush to hit; they engineer for it ahead of time, expanding database capacity, tuning application performance, and setting up dashboards that track server load and transaction volume by the thousands per hour.
That prep work comes to a head in a makeshift war room in the days and hours leading up to the deadline. Rows of monitors glow with live transaction counts, coffee goes cold next to keyboards, and someone calls out server response times like a play-by-play announcer.
Then tag results finally drop.
Thousands of hunters hit refresh within minutes of one another, checking their draw status, waiting on confirmation emails, and buying licenses. NDIT stages extra capacity in advance so the site and payment processing hold steady through both the announcement and the licensing rush that follows.
This year, that prep paid off: results posted on schedule, the site held up, payments processed smoothly, and confirmation emails landed in inboxes across the state—no dropped connections, no interruptions.
A true bull’s-eye.
Results day is the moment all that planning gets tested in real time,
Mock said. Watching the system carry that load, and knowing thousands of hunters got their answer the second they hit refresh—that’s the payoff for months of work.
A Growing Reputation for Ease
The payoff shows up in how hunters talk about the system, too. One recent constituent called North Dakota Game and Fish’s online licensing platform awesome,
praising its auto-fill features and saved account history for faster repeat access—and noting it beat similar systems in other states. It’s a small comment, but it reflects the bigger point: thoughtful design and solid backend engineering add up to a better experience for the people using it.
The traffic generated by the North Dakota deer lottery is unmatched by almost any other state agency’s needs, a tribute to how passionate people are about this hunting tradition,
said Jeb Williams, Director of North Dakota Game and Fish. We know these results have the potential to be the highlight of somebody’s year and we take that seriously. We work closely with NDIT to prepare for both lottery and results day, and we know there have no doubt been challenges, but we continue to work together to evaluate and make adjustments to ensure the application process is the easiest part of the hunt.
At the end of the day, hunters shouldn’t have to think about servers, databases, or system capacity. They should just be able to apply, check results, buy a license, and start planning their season.
That invisible reliability—not luck alone—is what makes North Dakota’s deer lottery possible.