Spin the Wheel

What is Spin the Wheel?

Spin the Wheel is a free random picker that puts your options on a colourful wheel and spins it to choose one fairly. Type names, numbers, prizes, tasks or anything else — one entry per line — and the wheel updates instantly. Click the wheel or the Spin button and it slows down smoothly until the pointer at the top stops on the winner. Every pick comes from your browser's cryptographic random number generator, and the wheel always stops on exactly the entry that was picked, so the result you see is the result you get.

Teachers use a wheel spinner to call on students, streamers run giveaways with it, friends use it to decide where to eat, and teams use it to choose who presents first. It works on phones, tablets and desktops, and fullscreen mode makes it easy to show on a projector or a shared screen.

How to use this tool

1. Enter your options in the box, one per line (up to 100). Blank lines are ignored and very long entries are shortened on the wheel.
2. Or load a preset — Yes/No, numbers 1 to 10, team names, food ideas or sample names.
3. Optional: tick "Remove the winner" for raffles where nobody should win twice, or press Shuffle to mix the order of the slices.
4. Spin by clicking the wheel or the Spin button. The result is announced under the wheel when it stops.
5. Check the history — every result is listed with the latest at the top. Copy it to share or keep as a record.
6. Go fullscreen for classrooms, live streams and events.

How the random pick works

Before the wheel moves, the tool picks the winning index using crypto.getRandomValues(), the same browser source used for generating passwords. It uses rejection sampling so every entry has exactly the same chance: with n entries, each has probability 1/n. The spin animation is then calculated to land on that slice: the wheel turns 5–7 full rotations plus the exact extra angle that puts a random point inside the winning slice under the pointer, and an ease-out curve makes it slow down naturally.

The announced winner is read back from the final wheel angle, so the text and the pointer can never disagree. With equal-sized slices, landing angle and chosen index are the same thing.

Worked example: with 8 names each slice is 360° ÷ 8 = 45° and each name has a 1 in 8 (12.5%) chance. With "Remove the winner" ticked, the second spin has 7 entries, so each remaining name has a 1 in 7 (about 14.3%) chance, then 1 in 6, and so on — just like drawing names from a hat. We tested the picker with 5,000 simulated spins of a 10-entry wheel and each entry won close to the expected 500 times, with every simulated landing angle pointing at the chosen entry.

Popular uses

• Classroom: pick a student to answer, choose a quiz topic or decide the order of presentations.
• Giveaways and raffles: paste participant names, tick "Remove the winner" and spin once for each prize.
• Decisions: what to eat, which movie to watch, who does the dishes.
• Games: truth-or-dare prompts, party challenges, picking teams or a random number from 1 to 10.
• Work: choose who runs stand-up, randomise a review order or pick a winner for a team prize.

Tips

• To give an option a higher chance, add it more than once — each line is one equal slice.
• Keep labels short so they stay readable; on very full wheels (50+ entries) the text gets smaller.
• For public giveaways, share your screen while spinning and copy the history afterwards as a record.
• Use Shuffle before spinning if people worry about the order of names — it does not change anyone's odds, but it reassures the audience.

Limitations & notes

The wheel supports up to 100 entries and shows the first 60 characters of each. Your entries and history stay only in this page — nothing is uploaded, and refreshing the page resets the history. The tool is for fun, classroom and informal decisions; for legally regulated lotteries or prize draws, follow the rules that apply in your country, which may require an independent draw. Fullscreen depends on browser support (on some iPhones it is not available for page elements).

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the spin the wheel result really random?

Yes. The winner is chosen with your browser's cryptographic random number generator using rejection sampling, so every entry has exactly the same chance. The animation is only drawn after the pick is made.

Does the pointer always stop on the announced winner?

Yes. The final wheel angle is calculated to place the chosen slice under the pointer, and the winner text is read back from that final angle, so the pointer and the announced name always match.

How many entries can I add?

Up to 100 entries, one per line. You need at least two entries to spin. If you paste more than 100, only the first 100 are used.

Can I remove a name after it wins?

Yes. Tick "Remove the winner from the wheel after each spin" and each winner is deleted from the list a moment after the spin, so the next spin only uses the remaining entries.

Can I make one option more likely to win?

Add that option on more than one line. Each line becomes one equal slice, so an entry listed twice on a wheel of ten slices has a 2 in 10 chance.

Are my entries saved or shared?

No. Everything runs in your browser. Entries and history are not uploaded and are cleared when you close or refresh the page, so copy the history if you need to keep it.

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