Allotment is the registrar’s job after bidding ends. The registrar takes valid applications, applies the rules in the prospectus and in SEBI’s allocation framework, and produces a basis of allotment: who gets how many shares. Retail applicants meet this as a status on a website, a debit or a released block in the bank, and either shares in the demat account or an empty holding. The status is the fact. The grey-market premium is not involved in the draw.

IPOWATCH does not run the draw and cannot see your PAN. The allotment hub only points at the registrar named for that issue. The steps below are so you know what that status page is deciding.

Valid applications come first

Before anyone talks about a lottery, the registrar throws out applications that were never complete. An unapproved UPI mandate, a wrong category, a bid below the final issue price, a PAN that does not match, an application that busts the retail ceiling while using the retail bucket: these do not enter the draw. Two brokers and one PAN are consolidated, not treated as two strangers. Applying “from your spouse’s account” is that person’s application, with that person’s bank and demat, not a second ticket in your name. It is also their investment decision, not a clerical trick.

When retail is oversubscribed

If valid retail demand at the issue price is more than the shares kept for retail, there are not enough minimum lots to give every applicant a lot. The method used in Indian book-built issues is to allot the minimum bid lot by drawing lots, so that the scarce shares reach more applicants instead of filling the largest forms first. If you applied for one lot, you are in that draw once. If you applied for several lots, you do not receive a quiet guaranteed multiple. The draw is built to place minimum lots into the largest number of hands. Any shares left after that step are handled proportionately as the basis of allotment describes.

The practical result readers care about: in a retail book subscribed many times, most applicants receive nothing, and the ones who receive shares usually receive one lot. “I applied for the maximum retail amount so I would get more” is a widespread disappointment. The maximum changes how your application is treated in the draw rules. It does not convert an oversubscribed retail portion into a shop where money buys a filled basket.

Illustration. Retail portion: 1,00,000 lots. Valid minimum-lot applications: 4,00,000. Subscription about 4×. Roughly a quarter of those applications can receive one lot if the allotment is a pure minimum-lot draw. The other three quarters see the bank lien released. The exact ratio moves with applications that asked for more than one lot and with the registrar’s published basis. Use the sketch to understand the shape. Use the basis document, when the company files it, for the actual ratio.

When retail is not oversubscribed

If retail demand is at or below the shares available, there is no need for a lottery to ration a shortage. Valid applications are met according to the basis, which in an undersubscribed retail portion means applicants tend to receive the shares they validly asked for, subject to the issue going ahead at all. A soft retail book can sit beside a strong institutional book. Your allotment chance and the company’s future return are unrelated variables. One can be kind while the other is a poor listing. How to read subscription keeps those variables apart.

Institutional and NII books are not lotteries in the retail sense

Qualified institutional buyers are allotted proportionately within their rules. Non-institutional investors have their own proportionate method, inside the smaller-application and larger-application slices SEBI put in place so the biggest cheques would not eat the entire NII portion. If you applied above ₹2 lakh, do not import retail lottery folklore. Read the basis that the company publishes for that category. The rupee amounts are large enough that “I will probably get one lot” is the wrong mental model.

After the basis is published

The timetable has a basis date, a refund or unblocking date, a demat credit date, and a listing date. They are close together. On the basis date the registrar’s site starts answering PAN queries. Shares move to demat accounts on the credit date. Listing is the next market day on the timetable, when a price exists. Blocked funds of unsuccessful applicants are supposed to be released on the refund schedule. If the date passes and the lien is still there, the conversation is with your bank and your broker, with the registrar status in hand. It is not with an IPO tracker. UPI mandates and refunds is the checklist, and how to check status is the click-path that avoids phishing pages.

What allotment does not decide

It does not decide whether the issue price was fair. It does not lock the GMP. Applicants who are allotted can still watch the share open below the unofficial quote, or below the issue price. Applicants who are not allotted have not “missed a gain” until a gain exists, and they have not “been saved” until a loss exists. Both stories are written on listing day, which is a new auction. Listing day is that auction. The disclaimer covers the urge to treat the registrar’s yes or no as a research opinion. It is an administrative result.