Unlimited draws, up to 500 entries
Paste a whole class list or a full raffle sheet. The wheel resizes its segments automatically and stays readable.
Free random picker · no sign-up
Wheel Spinner — pick a random name in seconds
A free random name picker for classrooms, giveaways and raffles. Type your entries, spin the wheel, and get a fair winner every time.
Wheel controls
Spins the wheel and announces a random winner. You can also press the space bar.
Add at least two names in the Entries box to build the wheel.
Wheel entries
0 / 500
One name per line. Add a name twice to double its chance.
Wheel settings
Sound and timing
Sound effects
Ticking while spinning and a fanfare for the winner.
How long the wheel keeps turning.
Draw behaviour
Remove winner after each spin
Useful for draws where nobody can win twice.
Hide names on the wheel
Keeps entries secret until the winner is revealed.
Appearance
Wheel colours
Pick the palette that suits your screen or projector.
Recent winners
No winners yet. Spin the wheel to start the list.
The short answer
What is the wheel spinner for?
The wheel spinner makes a choice for you when picking by hand would feel unfair or take too long. Teachers use it to call on students, managers use it to assign tasks, and creators use it to draw giveaway winners in front of a live audience.
Picking a name yourself is rarely as neutral as it feels. We reach for the person in the front row, the colleague who volunteered last time, or the entry sitting at the top of the list. A wheel removes that pull. Everyone watches the same pointer slow down, so the result is not just fair — it visibly looks fair, which is often what a room actually needs.
Where people use it most
- Classrooms. Cold-calling students, choosing reading order, forming pairs, picking who demonstrates a problem at the board. Our classroom name picker guide covers the routines that work best.
- Raffles and giveaways. Community draws, charity prizes, social media giveaways streamed live. The fair raffle checklist walks through running one that entrants trust.
- Teams and workplaces. Who runs stand-up, who picks the lunch spot, who takes the on-call weekend, who presents first in a retro.
- Home and everyday choices. Chore rotas, film night, which restaurant, which board game, who goes first.
Why a wheel instead of a list shuffle
A shuffled list gives you an answer. A wheel gives you a moment. The spin buys a few seconds of attention, the ticking pointer builds anticipation, and the reveal lands with everyone watching. In a classroom that attention is the point; in a live draw it is the difference between a result people accept and a result people question.
If a decision needs to be seen to be fair, show the process, not just the outcome.
Want to know exactly how the result is generated? Jump to is the wheel truly random, or read the deeper explainer on how randomness works in a spinning wheel.
What is included
Wheel features
Everything you need for a quick draw, with nothing to install and no account to create.
Remove the winner automatically
Turn on one setting and each winner drops off the wheel, so a long draw runs without anyone editing the list.
Hide names until the reveal
Blank segments keep a shortlist confidential in a shared room, then the winner appears in the popup.
Set how long the wheel turns
Anything from a snappy three seconds to a twelve second drum roll for a live audience.
Sound and celebration built in
A ticking pointer while the wheel turns, then confetti and a fanfare the moment it stops.
Three colour palettes
Harbour, Dusk and Citrus. Pick whichever stays legible on your classroom projector or stream overlay.
Fullscreen presentation mode
One tap hides everything but the wheel, which is what you want on a big screen or during a live stream.
Import and export your lists
Upload a .txt file of names or download the current list, so next week's draw starts where this one finished.
Twelve languages, no account
Switch language from the header. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, no adverts between you and the draw.
Four steps
How to use the wheel spinner
Four steps from an empty wheel to a winner on screen.
Type or paste your entries
Put one name per line in the Entries box. A class register, a list of prize claimants or a set of chores all work the same way.
Adjust the wheel to suit the room
Open Settings to change the spin length, switch palette, hide names, or have each winner removed automatically.
Spin it
Click the wheel, press the gold hub, or hit the space bar. The pointer ticks past every segment while the wheel slows down.
Announce the winner
The winner appears in a popup with confetti. Keep spinning, or remove that name and draw the next one.
Keyboard and touch shortcuts
- Space bar spins the wheel when the cursor is not inside a text box.
- Tap or click the wheel anywhere to spin it — handy on a touchscreen or whiteboard.
- Esc closes the winner popup.
Tips for a smooth draw
- For a long draw, switch on Remove winner after each spin before you start rather than editing between spins.
- On a projector, use fullscreen mode and the Citrus palette — the lighter segments hold up better under bright classroom lighting.
- Keep names short. "Olivia B." reads from the back of a room; "Olivia Bennett-Fitzgerald" does not.
- Download your list once it is set up, then upload the same file next time instead of retyping it.
Fairness
Is the wheel truly random?
Yes. Each spin draws a fresh random value from your browser's cryptographic random number generator, so the landing position cannot be predicted or nudged.
Where the randomness comes from
When you spin, the wheel asks your browser for a random value through crypto.getRandomValues() — the same class of generator used for security-sensitive work, seeded by your operating system rather than by a simple clock-based formula. That value decides the final resting angle. The number of rotations before it, the easing curve and the animation length are decoration; they change how the spin looks, not who wins.
Every segment has an equal share
Each entry gets exactly one slice of 360 degrees divided by the number of entries. With 20 names, each name owns an 18 degree slice and a 5% chance. Nothing in the code weights a segment, favours a position, or looks at what a name says. There is no house edge because there is no house.
Setting your own odds on purpose
If you want uneven odds, enter a name more than once. Three entries for one person on a 30-slice wheel is a 10% chance instead of 3.3%. That is the only weighting mechanism, and it is fully visible on the wheel where everyone can count it.
What "random" does not mean
Random does not mean evenly spread. Draw five times from a class of 25 and the same student may come up twice — that is ordinary chance, not a broken wheel. If you need each name to come up exactly once, use the Remove winner after each spin setting, which turns the wheel into a draw without replacement. There is a longer treatment of this in how random is a spinning wheel and a comparison with other methods in wheel vs dice vs coin flip.
Your data
Is my data private?
Your entries never leave your device. The wheel runs entirely in your browser, so names are not uploaded, stored on a server, or shared with anyone.
What stays on your device
The names you type, your winner history, and your settings all live in your own browser. The list is kept in local storage purely so the wheel still holds your entries if you refresh the page or come back tomorrow. Clearing your browser data removes it, and nothing about it is transmitted anywhere.
What we never collect
- No account, no email address, no password.
- No copy of your entry list on any server.
- No selling or sharing of personal information — there is nothing to sell.
Why this matters for schools
Student names are personal data in most jurisdictions, and tools that upload class lists create a compliance question for the teacher and the school. Because the wheel keeps everything client-side, a class list typed here is no more exposed than one written on the whiteboard. Read more in choosing privacy-first classroom tools, or see the full Privacy Policy.
Live
Activity on Spin Wheel
A live look at how much the wheel is being used right now.
Wheel spins
0
Total spins counted across the wheel.
Hours of spinning
0
Time people have spent making decisions here.
Languages available
12
Counters update every two seconds while this page is open.
Quick answers
Common questions about the wheel
Five things people ask most. The full FAQ page has ten more.
No. The wheel is free and open to everyone. There is no sign-up, no trial and no paid tier hiding the useful settings.
Up to 500 entries. Beyond roughly 60 names the labels become small on a phone, so fullscreen mode or a projector helps.
Each visitor spins their own copy in their own browser. To use the same list on another device, download the .txt file and upload it there.
Yes. The layout adapts to the screen, and you can tap the wheel itself to spin. It also works on interactive whiteboards.
Yes, by design: add that name twice. Two segments out of a hundred is exactly double the chance of one segment.
From the blog
Guides for getting more out of the wheel
Practical write-ups on classroom routines, fair prize draws and the maths behind the spin.
Classroom
How to use a random name picker in the classroom
Cold-calling without the awkwardness, plus the routines that keep a class engaged rather than anxious.
Prize draws
Running a raffle people actually trust
How to collect entries, show your working and announce a winner nobody argues with.
Randomness
How random is a spinning wheel, really?
Pseudo-random versus cryptographic randomness, and why streaks are normal rather than suspicious.
Ten guides, one wheel
Classroom routines, giveaway rules, decision-making and the maths behind it all.