Value of a Point

I have an entire page on this blog dedicated to what I call “Value of a Point.” Many times throughout the years as I have frequented a random handful of hunting forums I have come across questions asking what bonus points are worth, how much they increase odds of drawing, or something similar. Questions like that led me to see if the actual value of a bonus point could be quantified… and without too much trouble I found that it could. I also found that bonus points could be assigned two different values based upon a “macro” or “micro” definition. Macro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the entirety of the applicant pool, and micro means considering the value of the bonus point relative to the individual hunt unit. I have found that the easiest way to represent this value is to express it as a percentage, so the value is that each point increases your chances of drawing by “X” percent.
For example, I’m sitting on a pile of elk points… the macro value of my bonus points considers the entire applicant pool for elk while the micro value considers the smaller applicant pool in the unit that I’m applying for. Out of the 49,762 resident applicants in the 2017 Utah drawing, each point I have increased my chances of drawing an elk tag by 0.432%. Now let’s suppose that for 2017 I applied for the San Juan early any weapon hunt. With 1923 applicants for only 20 tags, and taking the number of bonus that the other applicants for that same hunt have, the micro value of my bonus points ends up being 0.055%. Whoa… wait a minute… the value of my bonus points was reduced from a macro value of 0.432% to a micro value of 0.055% just based upon the unit that I selected?!? That is absolutely correct! Consider instead that I applied for the Paunsaugunt early any weapon tag… a tag with only a fraction of the demand compared to the San Juan early rifle tag. The macro value remains the same at 0.432%, but the micro value of my bonus points increases to 1.592%. Nothing changed in my bonus points… but how I choose to utilize them in the application cycle (i.e. the unit that I select) dramatically changes their value.
Since the “macro” value is static and will not change, over the next couple posts let’s take a look at some of the “micro” factors that affect the value of bonus points.