Guides
The reasoning behind the tools: what makes a draw fair, where fairness is easy to lose by accident, and how to explain a result to somebody who did not see it happen.
4 guides
- How Random Selection Works Pseudorandom vs cryptographic randomness, how the Web Crypto API works, rejection sampling, weighted draws, Fisher-Yates and why animation never decides a result.
- How to Run a Fair Giveaway Drawing A practical checklist for prize draws: cleaning the entry list, handling duplicates, eligibility, exclusions, alternates, redraw rules and keeping a record.
- Classroom Random Picker Guide How to call on students fairly: no-repeat rounds, absences, presentation orders, keeping sound and motion low and protecting student privacy.
- How to Create Balanced Teams Fully random teams, equal headcount, skill-score balancing, spreading leaders, keep-apart rules, and why no algorithm can promise perfect balance.
Where to start
If you want to understand what the site is doing before you trust it with anything that matters, read how random selection works first. It covers the difference between a pseudorandom number and a cryptographic one, why the wheel decides the winner before it starts turning, and what a weighted draw actually changes.
If you have a specific job in front of you, go straight to it. Running a fair giveaway is about the parts that go wrong before any randomness is involved — duplicate entries, ineligible entrants, and having no record afterwards. The classroom guide is about calling on students without the wheel becoming the lesson. Balanced teams is about the point where "random" and "fair" stop meaning the same thing.
How these relate to the tools
Every guide names the tools it applies to and links to them, and every tool page links back to the guide that explains its method. The short version of all of it is on the methodology page, which writes out the algorithms directly, and you can run the selection code yourself on the randomness audit page to see the distribution it produces over thousands of draws.
Tools these guides cover
- Wheel of Names Spin a customisable wheel to pick one name from your list.
- Random Name Picker Draw names instantly, with or without repeats — no spinning required.
- Team Generator Split a roster into random or skill-balanced teams in one click.
- Yes or No Wheel Spin for Yes, No or Maybe when a small choice is holding you up.
- Random Number Generator Generate integers or decimals in a range, with repeats optional.
- Student Picker Call on students fairly, with no-repeat rounds and absences handled.