A name picker wheel is a random draw you can watch: the names go on the wheel, you spin it, and it stops on the winner. This wheel of names takes 2 to several hundred names, and the winner is drawn by a cryptographic generator before the wheel starts moving; the animation only lands on it. Use it in a classroom, a meeting or a live stream, wherever the group would rather watch the draw than read a result.
How do you spin the wheel of names?
- Replace the six example names in the field with yours, one per line or separated by commas. The wheel redraws as you type. Duplicates are removed, whatever their capitalization.
- Check "remove the winner after each spin" if each name may win only once: several prizes in a row, a speaking order, a rota.
- Spin the wheel. It turns for about four seconds and stops on the winner, shown in large type above the button.
- Spin again as often as you need. The history under the list keeps every past result in order; "Start again" clears it and puts every name back on the wheel.
The wheel needs at least two names, and tells you when nobody is left.
Is the wheel really random?
Yes, and the reason is that the spin decides nothing. When you press the button, the wheel draws the winner first, with crypto.getRandomValues, the browser's cryptographic generator, then computes the rotation that lands the pointer inside the winner's sector. Five full turns and a small offset inside the sector make every spin look different, but the result was fixed before the wheel moved.
Every name gets a sector of the same size, so every name has the same chance: with 8 names, 12.5% each; with 25 names, 4% each. Neither the order of the list nor where the wheel stopped last time changes those odds. With reduced motion enabled on your device, the wheel skips the animation; the draw is the same.
How many names can the wheel hold?
From 2 to several hundred. Past 30 names the sectors are too thin to be labeled, so the wheel hides the labels and keeps drawing; the winner is still printed above the button and in the history. Names longer than 14 characters are shortened on the wheel only, never in the result.
Past a hundred or so names, the sectors are slivers and nobody can follow the pointer. The random name picker handles those lists better, with winners and alternates in one draw.
What is a wheel good for, and what is it not?
A wheel is for draws where the point is to be seen drawing:
- A classroom: who reads next, which group presents first, which topic the class studies today.
- A team: who runs the stand-up, who takes the weekend on-call, who picks the restaurant.
- A live stream or an event: the audience watches the wheel stop on the winner.
- A family decision: which movie, which board game, whose turn.
What it does not do is prove a draw to people who were not in the room. For an Instagram or Facebook giveaway, entrants want to know that every comment was counted once, and a screen recording of a wheel does not show that. The Lukky app connects through the official Meta authorization, reads the comments itself, removes duplicates and issues a public certificate for each draw; more than 2.5 million draws have been run that way.
FAQ
- Can the wheel be rigged?
- Not from the outside. The winner is drawn by the browser's cryptographic generator before the wheel moves, and the animation only lands on it. There is no setting to favor a name, and the spin duration and offset do not change the result.
- How do I stop a name from winning twice?
- Check "remove the winner after each spin". The winner leaves the wheel, the remaining names share the sectors, and the history keeps the order in which people were drawn.
- Why are the labels missing on my wheel?
- You have more than 30 names. The sectors are too thin for readable text, so the labels are hidden, but the wheel still spins and the winner is shown above the button and in the history.
- Is the list saved anywhere?
- No. The names, the spins and the history live in your browser and disappear when you leave the page. Copy the history if you need to keep it.
- Can I use the wheel for an Instagram giveaway?
- You can type the names of commenters and spin, but you have to collect them by hand and your entrants cannot verify the draw. The Lukky app reads the comments itself and delivers a certificate.
Need a certified draw for an Instagram giveaway? How the certified draw works
Updated on August 28, 2026