Spin the wheel, pick a name
Paste your names, hit spin, and the wheel picks one at random. It works on a phone, keeps your list between visits, and runs entirely in your browser, so it still works when the school wifi does not. There is no sign-up, no advert covering the wheel, and no limit on how many times you spin.
Add some names, then give it a spin.
How to use it
Type or paste your names into the box, one per line. The wheel redraws as you type, so a class list pasted straight from a spreadsheet column works without any tidying up. Press the middle of the wheel, click the wheel itself, or tap the space bar to spin.
Two options change how it behaves. Remove the winner after each spin turns the wheel into a draw without replacement: each name comes out once and the wheel shrinks as you go, which is what you want for handing out turns, assigning jobs or working through a class one pupil at a time. Leave it off and every spin is independent, so the same name can come up twice in a row. That is not the wheel malfunctioning, it is what independent random picks actually look like.
Copy share link puts the whole list into the address of the page. Send that link to someone and they open the same wheel with the same names already loaded. Nothing is stored on our end to make that work, the names travel inside the link itself.
Is it actually random?
Yes, and it is worth explaining how, because a spinning wheel is exactly the kind of thing that can look fair while quietly favouring one segment.
The obvious way to build a wheel is to fling it with a random amount of force and see where it stops. That approach is subtly biased: the result depends on rounding in the animation, on how many frames the browser managed to draw, and on where the wheel happened to be sitting when you pressed the button. Small effects, but they are not evenly spread across the segments.
This wheel does it the other way round. It picks the winning segment first, using your browser's cryptographic random number generator, then aims the animation at that segment. The spin you watch is an honest depiction of a result that was already fairly chosen, rather than the thing deciding the result.
One more detail matters. Turning a random number into a number between one and the number of names is usually done with a remainder, and a remainder is slightly biased whenever the list size does not divide evenly into the generator's range. With ten names, the low numbers would come up marginally more often than the high ones. This picker discards and redraws the values that would cause that bias, so every name has the same chance to the last decimal place.
In the classroom
The most common use for a name wheel is cold-calling without the same three hands going up every time. A visible, obviously random pick changes the character of the room: nobody is being singled out, the wheel is, and pupils tend to accept its verdict in a way they do not always accept a teacher's.
A few things that make it work better in practice. Paste the register once and it will still be there next lesson, because the list is saved in the browser on that device. Switch on remove the winner for a session so that everyone gets a turn before anyone gets a second one, then reload the page to bring the full list back. Keep the sound on for a full class and off in a quiet room, using the checkbox rather than the volume keys.
Because the page is self-contained, it keeps working if the connection drops mid-lesson. Once it has loaded, spinning needs no network at all.
Giveaways, raffles and prize draws
A wheel is a good way to run a small, informal draw in front of people, and being able to see the spin is most of the point. Paste the entrants, share the screen, spin once, and everyone watching sees the same result at the same moment.
Be careful about where the line sits, though. An informal draw among colleagues or followers is one thing. A public prize promotion is often a regulated activity, and the rules vary by country and by the size and type of the prize. Many jurisdictions require published terms, a stated closing date, an identifiable promoter, and an auditable record of how the winner was chosen. A wheel on a web page produces none of that paperwork, and this one deliberately keeps no record of your spins, so it cannot produce evidence afterwards either. If your draw needs to stand up to a complaint, run it under the process your rules require and treat the wheel as the entertainment rather than the mechanism.
What it does with your list
Nothing leaves your device. The names are held in the page while you use it, and saved into your browser's local storage so they are still there next time you visit on that same device and browser. There is no account, no database and no request to any server carrying your list.
The consequences are worth being clear about. Your list will not follow you from your laptop to your phone unless you use the share link to carry it over. Clearing your browser data will delete it. Anyone else using the same browser profile on the same machine can see it. And a share link contains the names in plain view in the address, so treat it like a note passed across a room rather than anything private.
Common questions
How many names can I add?
Up to 300. Long lists still spin smoothly, but the labels are hidden once the slices become thinner than the text, because a wheel of unreadable slivers is less useful than a clean one. The pick itself is unaffected, and the winner is always announced underneath the wheel.
Can the same name win twice in a row?
Yes, unless you switch on 'remove the winner after each spin'. Independent random picks genuinely do repeat, and a repeat in a short run is normal rather than evidence of a fault. If you want each name to come up exactly once, use the remove option, which draws without replacement and shrinks the wheel as it goes.
Does it remember my list?
Yes, in the browser on the device you used. The list is saved locally as you type, so closing the tab and coming back later brings it straight back. It is not synced between devices and it is not stored on a server, so clearing your browsing data removes it.
Can I share a wheel with someone else?
Use the 'copy share link' button. The list is encoded into the link itself, so whoever opens it gets the same names loaded and ready. Because the names are visible in the address, do not use a share link for anything you would not want read over a shoulder.
Does it work without an internet connection?
Once the page has loaded, yes. Everything runs in your browser, so spinning, shuffling and removing winners all keep working if the connection drops. You need a connection only to load the page in the first place.
Can I turn the sound off?
Yes, with the sound checkbox next to the list. The ticking during a spin and the short chime at the end are generated by the browser rather than loaded as audio files, so muting them costs nothing and there is nothing to download either way.
Is it really free?
Yes. There is no account, no trial and no paid tier holding back a feature. The whole thing is one page that you can read the source of from your browser's view-source menu, including the code that picks the winner.