Spin the wheel to pick a random winner

Spin the wheel in seconds

Type your entries in the list, one per line, then click “Spin the wheel” or the wheel itself. It spins for a few seconds, slows down and stops on the winner, shown in large type under the wheel. You can also:

• remove the winner with one click, or automatically after each spin, to pick several names in a row;
• fill the wheel in one click with Yes / No, Yes / No / Maybe or a range of numbers, such as 1 to 10 or 1 to 100;
• shuffle or sort the list, see every result in the spin history and copy the result;
• go full screen to project the wheel in class or in a meeting, with or without the ticking sound.

Your list stays saved in your browser for next time. It’s free, with no sign-up and no ads in the tool.

A wheel spinner that is really fair

The winner is drawn the moment you click, using your browser’s cryptographic random number generator, the same kind of randomness used to protect passwords. The wheel then spins to the slice that was drawn: the animation shows the result, it doesn’t decide it. Every slice has exactly the same chance, wherever the wheel stopped last time.

An entry written twice takes up two slices and has twice the chance: it’s an easy way to give one option more weight. The counter under the list shows how many slices the wheel has and how many are duplicates.

Ideas for the wheel

• In the classroom: pick who answers next, draw a question or set the order of presentations, removing each student after their turn.
• Giveaways and raffles: pick a winner from the entrants in front of everyone, in full screen.
• Everyday decisions: what’s for dinner, which movie to watch, who does the dishes or where to go next.
• At work: choose who runs the meeting, assign tasks or start an icebreaker.

The yes or no wheel

To settle a question, click the Yes / No template: the wheel has just two slices, each with a 50% chance. With Yes / No / Maybe, each answer has a one-in-three chance. For a bigger decision, spin three times and keep the answer that comes up at least twice.

The random number wheel

Enter two numbers and click Fill: the wheel shows every number in between, up to 200 slices, for example 1 to 6 to replace a die or 1 to 100 for a random number. To draw many numbers or from a very large range, the random number picker is more practical.

Picking several winners in a row

Check “Remove the winner after each spin”: each name that comes up leaves the wheel, so it can never pick the same person twice. The spin history keeps the order of the draws, which gives you a full ranking or running order. Without that option, the Remove button under the result takes the winner off one at a time.

Where the wheel of fortune comes from

The image is old: in the Middle Ages, the goddess Fortuna was shown turning a wheel that lifts people up and brings them down, an idea made popular by Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, written in the 6th century. Fairground wheels and TV game shows later made it a symbol of luck. An online wheel keeps the suspense, with a draw that is truly fair.

More free tools

• the random name picker draws several winners at once, makes teams or picks numbers;
• the coin flipper tosses a virtual coin, once or 10,000 times;
• the Morse code translator writes and plays a message in Morse code.