How to collect entries, run the draw in the open and announce a winner nobody disputes — a step-by-step process for charity raffles and community prize draws.
Trust is a process, not a promise
Every disputed raffle has the same shape: the organiser knew it was fair, and nobody else could tell. The fix is not a better random number generator. It is a process the audience can follow from entry to announcement, with the interesting part done in public.
Before the draw
Write the rules down first
Publish, in one short paragraph: who can enter, how to enter, the closing time, how many prizes there are, how the winner will be chosen, and how they will be contacted. Rules written afterwards always look like they were written to fit the result.
Build the entry list carefully
Number your entries. If tickets were sold on paper, transcribe them into a list and check the count against the money taken. If entries came from a form, remove duplicates and disqualified entries before the draw, not after. The list you spin on should be final.
Decide how multiple tickets work
If someone bought five tickets, they should hold five chances. On a wheel that means five entries with the same name — five visible segments anyone can count. This is the honest way to weight a draw, and it is the only weighting our spin wheel supports.
Show the list before you spin
Display the full entry list to the room, or publish it in advance with entry numbers. Once people have seen the list, the draw itself becomes a formality they can verify rather than an outcome they must accept.
During the draw
- Show the entries on screen. Paste the list into the wheel with everyone watching, and read out the entry count.
- Announce the method. One sentence: "This wheel gives every entry an equal segment and picks using the browser's random number generator."
- Set a longer spin. Eight to ten seconds gives an audience time to react. That is what the spin-length setting is for.
- Spin once, in one take. No practice spins on the live list, and no re-spins because the result was awkward. A re-spin destroys the whole exercise.
- Turn on "remove winner" for multiple prizes. The first winner disappears from the wheel before the second draw, on screen, so nobody wins twice by accident.
- Record it. A phone video of the spin, showing the entry list and the result, settles almost every later question.
After the draw
- Announce the winner in the same place you announced the rules.
- Say how and when the prize will be delivered, and what happens if the winner does not respond — a stated deadline and a stated backup process, ideally decided beforehand.
- Publish the total raised if it is a charity draw. It closes the loop for everyone who bought a ticket.
- Keep the entry list and the recording for a reasonable period, then delete the personal data.
The legal bit worth checking
Prize draws, raffles, lotteries and competitions are regulated differently depending on where you are and whether people pay to enter. A free-entry giveaway is usually straightforward; selling tickets can require registration or a licence, particularly for charity lotteries. This article is a process guide, not legal advice — check the rules of your own jurisdiction before selling a single ticket. The terms of this site say the same thing more formally.
Common objections and honest answers
"How do we know it isn't rigged?" The wheel takes its result from the browser's cryptographic random number generator and never inspects the names. The longer version is in how random is a spinning wheel.
"The same family won twice." With independent draws that happens more often than intuition suggests. Removing each winner before the next spin prevents it entirely — decide which model you want before you start, and say so in the rules.
"Why not just use a spreadsheet formula?" Because nobody in the room can see a formula run. Visibility is the entire argument for a wheel, which is also the theme of drawing giveaway winners live.
Run yours
Paste your final entry list into the wheel spinner, set a ten-second spin, share your screen, and draw. For larger events with several prizes and a running order, see using a spin wheel at events.
Try it while it is fresh
The wheel is free, needs no account, and keeps your list in your own browser.