An article linked below says this year there could be as many as 5 at large spots to this year's games. I've seen in other articles that in future years there will be fewer, including as few as one at large spot in a coming year. 2016 maybe?

Anyway, how can there be such a large discrepancy in the number at large spots if there are always the same number of bowls and always the same number of automatic spots given out? It must be that some years have more than others in terms of automatic spots. How does that work?