The "prioritization draw", ICANN's answer to Blighty's favourite game of chance, is today!

By buying US100€ tickets, new gTLD applicants get the right to be entered into the draw. Their prize will be a "priority number" that will determine the order in which applications move through the remainder of ICANN's newgTLD validation process.

The draw became a necessary solution due to the number of applications received (as of prioritization draw night, there were 1917 applications still left in the running) and the shelving of earlier plans to handle applications in batches.

Each applicant can only purchase one ticket, and once they have going through the draw and been allotted their priority number, numbers cannot be exchanged, sold or otherwise traded.

ICANN has applied to the California Department of Justice for a license to conduct the draw, the concept of which has been widely met with satisfaction that it's a fair and equitable way of prioritizing close to 2000 new gTLD applications.

The draw itself starts at 19:00 UTC today (December 17).

Applicants did not have to buy a ticket for the draw, if they did not want to take part, but all will be prioritized anyway.

There are 4 draws. As it was determined that applications for IDN (non ASCII) TLDs should be handled first, the first draw is only for IDN applicants that have bought a ticket. The second is for non-IDN applicants with tickets.

Draw 3 and 4 are respectively for IDN and non-IDN applicants that did not buy tickets. ICANN may decide to hold these on another day if the first two prove too lengthy.

ICANN is streaming the draw live and will also be posting results live.