Picker

Wheel of names

A random name picker and item picker in one: paste any list, spin the wheel, and highlight a fair winner. Works for student names, teams, prizes, or any list of items.

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How do you pick a random name or item from a list?

To pick a random name or item, paste your list into the wheel of names (one entry per line) and press Spin. Each entry becomes an equally sized slice, the tool draws a winner with cryptographic randomness, and the wheel lands on the chosen name. Because every line has the same odds, it is a fair way to pick a student, draw a prize, or choose any single item from a list.

Paste your names or items into the box, one per line.
Press Spin Wheel and wait for it to stop on a slice.
Read the highlighted winner; remove that line to draw again without repeats.

How the spinner wheel works

Each line becomes one SVG wheel segment. The winner is selected with crypto randomness, then the wheel animates to create a clear reveal without sending the list anywhere.

A wheel of names turns a list of options into a spinner. Every line in the text box becomes one slice of the wheel, and slices are sized evenly so each entry has the same chance of being chosen. The winner is selected by sampling the list with crypto randomness, then the SVG wheel animates and stops with the chosen slice under the pointer. Because the result is decided before the animation starts, the spin feels suspenseful without being able to drift due to timing.

It is a good fit any time you have a shortlist and you want the pick to feel public and final. Teachers use it to call on students without bias. Streamers use it to draw a viewer from a chat list. Project teams use it to pick a demo presenter, a retro facilitator, or a person on call. Households use it for chore order, snack picks, or who is up next in a game. The Shuffle button reorders the slices on the wheel without changing the list contents, which is handy when the visual position of names matters to the room.

The list is captured in the URL so a wheel set up for a 4 p.m. standup can be opened by a colleague at exactly the same setup later. The wheel keeps a short result history on the side panel so the last few winners are visible, which is useful when running multiple rounds in a row and you want to avoid repeats by eye.

How to use the wheel of names

Paste or type one option per line in the Names or options text area. Blank lines are ignored, so paste a list as-is.
Confirm the wheel preview shows the right number of slices on the right side of the screen.
Press Spin Wheel. The wheel animates for about two and a half seconds before landing on the chosen slice.
Read the highlighted winner in the Today's pick panel. The last eight winners appear in the History list.
Optionally press Shuffle to randomize the slice order without changing the list, or edit the text to remove a winner before the next spin.
Press Copy link to share the loaded wheel with someone else; the names travel in the URL.

Questions people ask

How are slice randomization and the winner pick connected?

The winner is selected first by sampling the entries with crypto randomness. The wheel then rotates so the chosen slice ends up under the pointer. Slice order on the wheel only affects what the spin looks like — it does not affect which option is selected, because every entry has the same probability regardless of slice position.

How do I add names, and what counts as a separate entry?

Paste or type one name or option per line. Every non-empty line becomes one wheel segment, and leading or trailing spaces are trimmed automatically. To weight an option more than others, repeat the line — two copies of "Sam" gives Sam twice the chance of being picked.

Can I remove a winner before the next spin?

Yes. Edit the text area to delete the winning line, then press Spin Wheel again. The wheel rebuilds with the new slice count instantly, so a draw without replacement is just delete-and-spin. The history panel still shows the previous winner for reference.

Can I share or save the wheel I set up?

Yes. The list is encoded in the URL after any edit, so Copy link captures the full setup. Anyone opening that link sees the same wheel without needing to retype the names. Your last list also restores automatically on your own device when you return.

How is this different from a paper draw or a spreadsheet random sort?

A paper draw works for a small group but is hard to audit and easy to fumble. A spreadsheet random sort changes every time you touch the file, so a saved screenshot is the only record. This wheel keeps the list visible, the spin reproducible from the URL, and a short history on screen — useful when a meeting wants the pick to feel public and the room wants to see the process.

Is the spinner result truly random?

Each spin is independent and uses browser crypto randomness to pick the winner before the wheel animates. Repeating the same entry biases the result toward that entry, but otherwise the wheel does not weight any slice differently from the others.