Random Picker
Paste your entries and draw. Leave the seed empty for a fresh random draw, or set one so that anybody can repeat the same draw and see that you did not fish for a winner.
How to use it
- Paste your entries, one per line.
- Say how many winners you need.
- Press Pick. Nobody can win twice — the draw is without replacement, the way a real hat works.
The problem with a random picker, and the fix
Here is the awkward truth about every random picker on the web, including this one: the randomness is easy and the trust is hard. Nothing stops somebody pressing the button eleven times until their friend's name appears, and a screenshot of the winner proves nothing at all about how many draws came before it.
That is what the seed box is for. Type anything into it and the draw stops being unpredictable and becomes repeatable: the same list with the same seed always produces exactly the same winners, in the same order, for anybody who tries it. Publish your list and your seed and every entrant can check the result themselves.
Making that actually mean something
A seed only proves anything if you could not have chosen it to suit the answer. Two ways to get that right:
- Commit first. Post the entry list and the seed publicly before you draw, then draw.
- Borrow a number nobody controls. Announce the list and say the seed will be tomorrow's national lottery numbers, or the closing score of a named match. You cannot know it in advance and neither can anyone else, and afterwards everyone can verify.
The second is what serious giveaways do, and it costs you nothing but a sentence in the announcement.
Leave the seed empty for an ordinary draw
With no seed the numbers come from
crypto.getRandomValues, the generator your browser uses
for encryption keys, with the leftover values discarded so every
entry is exactly as likely as every other. That is the right choice
for deciding who makes the tea. It is repeatable by nobody,
including you.
A seeded draw uses a small deterministic generator instead. It is even-handed and perfectly good for a draw, but it is not secret: the point is precisely that anyone holding the seed can reproduce it. Do not use a seeded draw where the result needs to be unpredictable to the person holding the seed.
Frequently asked questions
Can the same person be picked twice?
No. Winners are drawn without replacement, like names out of a hat, so asking for three winners gives you three different entries. Tick off 'one entry per person' as well if your list has the same name typed more than once.
What exactly does the seed do?
It replaces unpredictable randomness with repeatable randomness. The same list and the same seed always give the same winners, so anybody can run the draw again and confirm your result. Change a single character of either and the winners change completely.
Does a seed make the draw less fair?
No. Every entry still has the same chance. What changes is secrecy, not fairness - a seeded draw can be reproduced by anyone who knows the seed, which is the whole point of using one.
How do I run a giveaway nobody can argue with?
Publish the entry list, and say in advance which future public number will be the seed - a lottery draw, a match score, anything you cannot control. Afterwards, anyone can paste the same list and seed here and get the same winners.
Does the order of my list change the result?
Yes, for a seeded draw: the same names in a different order with the same seed give different winners. So publish the list in the exact order you will use, or sort it alphabetically and say so.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. Everything happens in JavaScript inside your own browser. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is saved - close the tab and it is gone.