Random Name Picker - Spin the Wheel

How the Random Name Picker Works

1. 01Paste or type your names, one per line. The list is saved in your browser for next time.
2. 02Press the spin button and watch the wheel rotate for about four seconds.
3. 03The name under the pointer wins and is announced below the wheel.
4. 04Optionally remove each winner from the list automatically, and keep spinning for more picks. A history of past winners builds up below.

Fair Picks with Equal Odds

Every name gets an equally sized slice of the wheel, and the winner is chosen with uniform probability the moment you press spin: with 20 names each has exactly a 5% chance. The animation is pure suspense. The remove-winner option turns the wheel into a no-repeat picker, which is what you want for presentation order or a raffle with several prizes. Your list is stored only in your browser's localStorage, so it survives a refresh but is never uploaded anywhere.

When to Use This Picker

Use it any time a choice needs to be visibly fair: cold-calling students, assigning classroom jobs, picking a giveaway winner on stream, choosing who presents first, or settling who gets the last slice. The spinning wheel matters because the audience can see the randomness happen, which removes any suspicion that the picker played favorites.

Common Use Cases

• —Cold-call students fairly so the same hands are not answering every question. Random Group Generator - Split Names into Teams
• —Draw giveaway or raffle winners with a visible, suspenseful spin.
• —Decide presentation order by spinning with remove-winner enabled until the list is empty.

Tips

• ✻Enable remove-winner before a multi-prize draw so nobody wins twice.
• ✻Keep one browser per class list: the wheel remembers your last list automatically.
• ✻Duplicate a name on two lines if someone should legitimately have double odds, for example one raffle ticket per book read.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the wheel truly random?→

Each spin picks a winner using the browser's built-in random number generator with equal probability per name. That is not casino-grade cryptographic randomness, but for classrooms, raffles, and team picks it is statistically fair: over many spins every name wins at very close to the same rate.

Are my names uploaded or shared?→

No. The list lives only in your browser. It is kept in localStorage on your device so it is still there when you return, and clearing your browser data removes it completely. Nothing is sent to a server.

Can the same person win twice?→

By default yes, every spin uses the full list. Tick the remove-winner option and each winner is deleted from the list after the spin, so nobody can win twice and repeated spins produce a complete random ordering of the group.

How many names can I put on the wheel?→

There is no hard limit, but the wheel is easiest to read with up to about 40 names, since slices get thin beyond that. The picking stays perfectly fair at any size. For hundreds of entries, the odds still work, you just will not be able to distinguish individual slices visually.

Can I use it for a prize draw with multiple winners?→

Yes. Enable remove-winner, then spin once per prize. The history list below the wheel records winners in order, so you have first, second, and third place documented without any duplicates.