Within hours of Lawrence Tynes's sending the Giants to the Super Bowl, tens of thousands of Giants season-ticket holders found out whether they would have the opportunity to make the same trip.

From Sunday night to Monday morning, the Giants sent out email blasts informing their season-ticket holders of the results of their Super Bowl ticket draw, a random computer selection process that determined who would have the opportunity to buy tickets for Indianapolis.

But the way the Giants structured the draw meant that not every season-ticket holder was entered with the same chances. Each entry was weighted by seniority and further helped if the season tickets were for the higher-priced seats in the Mezzanine Club and Coaches Club, leaving many fans frustrated at the Giants' lack of transparency.

Dan Cillié, whose family has held tickets since the 1940s but did not win the Super Bowl lottery, said he didn't even know how a lottery would unfold until his result came in an email Sunday night.

"It should have been more explicitly laid out how it worked for different classes of licensees," he said in a telephone interview. "It's their prerogative to do it, but it should be explained."

The criteria were detailed in separate emails to club seat holders and non-club seat holders after the selection occurred. The message did not inform non-club seat holders the club seat holders would carry any extra weight.

"For each year that you have held tickets in your name," the email to club seat holders said, "your account number was entered one time. That number was then multiplied by the number of Club Seats you own."

The rest of the season-ticket holders only had their entries multiplied by the number of years they had owned the tickets, regardless of how many seats they held. In other words, someone who has held five club seats for three years would be entered in the lottery 15 times, the same number as a fan with any number of non-club tickets for the last 15 years.

When the team last went to the Super Bowl, in 2008, the process only took into account seniority, according to the Giants.

The league makes 17.5% of the tickets available to each of the participating teams, which translates to roughly 12,250 tickets each based on the stated capacity of Indianapolis's Lucas Oil Stadium. From that allotment, the Giants also hold back a number of tickets for their players and staff.

Because of the unique distribution—with an outsize proportion going to sponsors, the league and team affiliates—the volume of tickets available on secondary markets is roughly half of what it was for the conference championship games.

According to SeatGeek, a website that tracks and forecasts ticket prices across secondary markets, there are roughly 7,000 Super Bowl tickets around, a steep drop compared the 15,000 that were available in the buildup to the NFC Championship game between the Giants and the 49ers. As of Monday afternoon, the average price for a Super Bowl ticket was $3,207.