Wheel of Names

What is the Wheel of Names?

Wheel of Names is a spinning wheel you build from your own list. Type names directly, paste a block of text from a spreadsheet, or import a .txt or .csv file — the wheel redraws itself as you go, giving every entry its own coloured slice and number.

It is built for the ordinary moments where someone has to be chosen and nobody wants to argue about it: picking who presents first, drawing a raffle winner at a school fair, deciding which family member picks the film, or choosing which of twelve ideas gets prototyped this sprint. It is not a casino game and there is nothing to bet.

How to use it

1. Type or paste your names into the list on the left. One name per line works best, but commas and tabs are detected automatically.
2. Clean the list if you need to: remove duplicates, trim stray spaces, sort it, or shuffle it. Every clean-up action can be undone.
3. Optionally open “Entry options and weights” to switch entries off temporarily, give someone a larger share, or drag a name into a different position on the wheel.
4. Press Spin — or click the hub in the middle of the wheel.
5. Read the winner in the result card, then copy it, remove that name from the list, or spin again.
6. For a classroom or a stage, press Full screen so the wheel and the result fill the display.

How the random selection works

When you press Spin, the winner is selected first, before a single frame is drawn. The tool asks the browser for cryptographically secure random bytes through crypto.getRandomValues(), converts them into an index with rejection sampling so no entry is favoured by rounding, and only then calculates the rotation that will park that slice under the pointer. The easing curve, the spin duration and your device’s frame rate change how the wheel looks getting there, never where it stops. After the animation the tool re-checks which slice is under the pointer and logs an error if it disagrees with the chosen winner.

The full algorithm — including the rejection-sampling step and the wheel stop-angle calculation — is written out on the methodology page.

Practical examples

• A teacher spins a class list to decide who reads the next paragraph, ticking “remove the winner” so everyone gets a turn.
• An event host draws a door prize from a list of ticket numbers pasted straight out of a spreadsheet.
• A team lead spins six retrospective topics and discusses whichever one comes up first.
• A family spins a list of five weekend activities instead of relitigating the same debate every Saturday.
• A streamer spins a list of viewer suggestions on screen using full-screen mode.

Available options

• Unlimited entries, with a readable-wheel warning once you pass around 100 slices and an automatic simplified mode beyond that.
• Weights per entry, with the live chance of each name shown as a percentage.
• Switch entries off without deleting them, for people who are away today.
• Remove the winner automatically after each spin, or keep the wheel unchanged.
• Draw a series: several winners back to back, never repeating a name.
• Reorder the wheel by dragging a name, or with the up and down buttons beside it if you are not using a mouse.
• Spin time slider, sound toggle, celebration toggle and a read-the-result-aloud option.
• Dark mode, full screen, and a no-animation mode that shows the result instantly.
• Import .txt and .csv, download the entry list, and save named lists in this browser.
• Export the whole wheel — names, weights and on/off states — as a file you keep, and import it again on another device.
• Share the result or a link to the tool. The link opens an empty wheel: your list is never attached to it.

Privacy

Names on a wheel are often real people, so the wheel treats them carefully. Everything you type stays in this browser tab. There is no account, no upload step and no server-side copy of your list: the draw runs in JavaScript on your own device. Nothing is written to browser storage unless you explicitly save a list or tick the option to keep your draw history, and both can be cleared at any time from the privacy page.

Full details are in the privacy policy, which also has a button that deletes everything this site has stored in your browser.

Fairness and limitations

With no weights applied, every enabled entry has exactly the same chance on every spin — including duplicates, which count as separate entries. When you add weights, the slice sizes change to match, and the tool labels the draw as weighted in both the result card and the history so a weighted draw can never be presented as an equal one. What the wheel cannot do is make a draw meaningful: if the same person wins twice in a row, that is ordinary randomness, not a fault. For anything with legal or financial consequences, keep your own record of the entry list and the result.