WheelJarWho gets picked? Spin the wheel of names.
Random name picker
Every slice is the same size
1 in 10
Press SPIN to draw a winner
Sealed draw for a giveaway
One-offTell us the draw date. We seal a random seed now and publish its fingerprint straight away, then send you the seed itself on the day — so nobody can claim you picked the winner.
Try also
How do you pick a name at random and keep it fair?
Give every name exactly one slice, draw the winning slice from a cryptographic random source, and do it in front of everyone. Ten names means ten 36° slices and a flat 10% chance each. The winner is selected the instant you press spin — the animation is choreography added afterwards, which is why nothing about how the wheel is dragged can influence it.
The setting that does the real work here is remove winner after each spin. Leave it on and the wheel pops the winner off the list, so consecutive spins give you first, second and third place without duplicates, and a class register empties one student at a time until everyone has had a turn. Turn it off and every spin samples the full list again — the right mode when the same person could legitimately be picked twice.
Names live in the text box and in the page address, nothing else. Copy the link and you have sent the identical wheel: same names, same order.
The odds are pure arithmetic, and they move as the wheel empties. With remove-winner on, a name that survives the first spin is not unlucky — it is getting steadily more likely.
| Names left on the wheel | Slice width | Chance per spin |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 12° | 3.3% |
| 20 | 18° | 5% |
| 10 | 36° | 10% |
| 5 | 72° | 20% |
| 3 | 120° | 33.3% |
| 2 | 180° | 50% |
Anyone still on a wheel of three has a one-in-three shot, which is worth saying out loud before the last spin. It also explains why a rotation feels tense at the end and dull at the start.
Three jobs, three tools: one winner from many is this page, a running order for everyone is the list randomizer, and an even split into groups is the team generator.
Frequently asked questions
How many names can I put on the wheel?
As many lines as you can paste. Labels stay readable up to roughly 40 names; beyond that the slices get thin and the winner banner does the announcing instead. For a 200-entrant raffle the list randomizer or a numbered draw with the random number generator is easier to film and easier to audit.
Will the same name come up twice in a row?
It can, unless remove-winner is ticked. With ten names there is a 1-in-10 chance the next spin repeats the last one, and that is the correct behaviour for an independent draw — a picker that refused to repeat would no longer be random. If repeats are unacceptable, tick the box and each winner leaves the wheel.
Can I use this for a classroom cold call?
It is one of the most common uses. Paste the register once, bookmark the resulting link, and it loads with your class already on it. Remove-winner turns it into a no-repeats rotation so quiet students get their turn, and the visible wheel takes the sting out of being chosen — the teacher did not pick you, the arithmetic did.
How do I give someone a better chance of winning?
Put their name on more than one line. Two lines out of eleven is an 18.2% chance instead of 9.1%. Raffles that sell multiple tickets work exactly this way, and the wheel shows the weighting honestly because anyone can count the duplicate slices. There is no hidden weighting control, deliberately.
Can I save a wheel and reuse it next week?
Bookmark the page after you have typed your names. The entries are carried in the address bar, so the bookmark restores the exact list. That is also how you hand a wheel to a colleague — send the link rather than the list. Nothing is stored on a server, so the link is the only copy that exists.
Is it fair enough for a real prize draw?
For an informal giveaway, yes, provided you show the entry list and spin on camera. Every slice is provably the same size and the draw comes from the same generator browsers use for encryption keys. For anything with legal weight, follow the promotion rules of your jurisdiction — a web page is evidence, not authorisation.
How the randomness works
crypto.getRandomValues and reduced to the range of your list by
rejection sampling, so every name has an identical probability with no rounding bias towards the
low indices. With remove-winner enabled the chosen name is spliced out of the working list and the
remaining slices are redrawn at equal width, which is why the odds rise as the wheel empties: one
in ten, then one in nine, and so on. Names are read from the text box, mirrored into the page URL
so the wheel can be shared, and never transmitted to a server.Worked example
With Remove winner after each spin yes, this page works out 1 in 10. Press SPIN to draw a winner
Sources:
What the winning name does not settle
A name picker removes the accusation of favouritism, not the consequences of the result. The person whose name comes out still has to do the presentation, and the four who did not still noticed how relieved they were.
Two habits make it hold up. First, fix the list before you spin, in public — a wheel edited between spins is not a random draw, it is a negotiation. Second, decide in advance whether removal is on. Drawing three prizes with remove-winner off means the same person can win twice, which is defensible if you announced it and indefensible if you did not.
For rotations — standups, presentation order, washing-up — spinning repeatedly with removal on is slower than it needs to be. The list randomizer shuffles the whole group into a running order in one go, and the team generator splits them into sides.