A previous article resulted in several questions about the diversity visa (green card) lottery. Today we are happy to announce that the State Department has finally put in place a system for entrants to check the status of their entry at: http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/ESC. 

You just need three pieces of information from your 2008 registration: 1) your Confirmation Number, 2) your Family Name (Last Name), and 3) your Birth Year.  If you did not enter using a last name, check the box for “No Last/Family Name”.

The confirmation number was provided if you successfully entered last fall. It is a 16-character number, similar to this: 20101O0DZWY3DOV9.  When checking your number, do not confuse a “1” with an “I” or a "0" with an "O" which, of course, are separate characters. (Some people received an 18-character number. If you did too, please let me know.) 

Next, enter the standard 5 or 6 digit “CAPTCHA” code shown on the screen.  This code is not case sensitive. That is, both “NH56U9” and “nh56u9” are the same.

Unfortunately, there have been multiple reports that the U.S. State Department server was overloaded. In that case, you may receive this message: “System error. Please try again later”.
 
If you won the lottery, you will receive this message:

Based on the information and confirmation number provided, you should have received a letter by mail from the United States Department of State’s Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) notifying you that your Diversity Visa entry was selected in the DV-2010 lottery.

If you have not received a letter instructing you how to proceed by August 1, 2009, please contact KCC by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Please remember that you do not have to pay until you apply for a visa at a U.S. consulate or embassy. The U.S. government will not ask you to send money by mail or by courier service.

If you did not win, you will receive this message:

Based on the information provided, the Entry HAS NOT BEEN SELECTED for further processing for the 2010 Electronic Diversity Visa program.

Please verify that you have entered all information correctly. You may re-check the Entry status by clicking on the Return to Entrant Status Check Main Page link below.

What are your chances of winning?  Many green card lottery services wrongly claim the chances are 1 in 60 (1.5%), based on the fact that 100,000 winners were selected out of approximately 6,400,000 entrants in calendar year 2006 (DV-2008).  However these gross statistics do not take into account regional differences. For example, Africa had 52,800 winners out of 2,600,000 applicants. Therefore Africans overall had a 2% chance of winning.  Asians only had a 0.6% chance; i.e. 1 in 172. 

Did you win?  Did you have a problem checking your entry?  Let us know.