Raffle Generator: Draw Random Winners

A raffle generator draws one or more winners at random from a list of participants. Instead of folding paper tickets into a hat, you paste the names, choose how many winners you need and let the draw run on screen, where everyone can watch it. It suits school fairs, club raffles, office gift draws, online giveaways and any contest where several prizes go to different people.

Unlike a simple wheel, it is built for the awkward parts of a real draw: duplicate entries, people who bought several tickets, staff who cannot take part, and a winner who never replies.

1. Paste your participants, one per line, or import a CSV or TXT file.
2. Set the number of winners, from 1 to 100, and the number of alternates, from 0 to 20.
3. Check the options: duplicate removal is on by default, and you can add an exclusion list.
4. Start the draw. The first winner gets the full wheel animation, the next ones a quick spin each.
5. Copy the ranked results, export them as CSV, or create a certificate and an image to publish.

All winners are drawn in a single session, without replacement: once a name has won, it leaves the draw, so the same person can never take two prizes by accident. Results are ranked “Winner 1, Winner 2…”, which makes it easy to match them with first, second and third prize.

Alternates are drawn straight after the winners, from the people who are left, and listed in order as “Alternate 1, Alternate 2…”. If a winner cannot be reached or turns the prize down, you simply move to the next alternate. Because they were drawn at the same time, nobody can suspect you of picking a replacement you liked better.

Duplicate removal ignores capitals, accents and extra spaces, so “Sofia”, “sofia” and “Sofía” count as one person. In the sample list, Sofia appears twice: turn the option off and she gets two chances, keep it on and she gets one. There is also an option to limit everyone to a single entry.

To give someone more chances, add a space, an asterisk and a number after the name: Jack *3 means three tickets. Odds stay proportional: with 100 tickets in total, Jack’s three tickets give him a 3% chance of being drawn first. The exclusion list, one name per line, keeps out anyone who should not win, such as organizers, staff or last month’s winners.

After the draw, create a certificate you can print or save as an image. It shows the title of the draw, the date and time with the time zone, the number of participants, the settings used, with weights marked as all equal or custom, and the full list of winners and alternates.

The certificate also carries a SHA-256 fingerprint of the participant list. Publish the list as a .txt file next to it, and anyone can recalculate the fingerprint to check that no name was added or removed after the certificate was published. To be fully transparent, note that this proves the list was not changed afterwards; it does not prove the draw before it happens. A verifiable draw that does is planned.

School fairs and club raffles

Type in the buyers with their number of tickets and project the draw in the hall. If you sold numbered tickets instead, the random number generator can draw the numbers.

Social media giveaways

Running a contest on Instagram? The Instagram giveaway picker reads pasted comments, extracts usernames and checks mention rules before the draw.

Office parties and team events

Draw who gets each gift card, or let a prize wheel decide which prize each person takes home.

A few habits make any giveaway smoother. Publish simple rules before you start: dates, who can enter, what the prize is, how the winner is chosen and how they will be contacted. In many places, a draw that requires a purchase or payment to enter is regulated, which is why a free way to enter is common practice. Announce the result publicly, and since rules differ from country to country, check what applies where you live. This is general information, not legal advice.

Yes. Every winner and alternate is drawn with your browser’s cryptographic random generator, using a method without the small bias of naive random code, before any animation plays. Each ticket has exactly the same chance, so with 15 equal entries every name starts at 1 in 15. Nothing is decided by our server, and there is no option to force a winner. The page on fairness and randomness explains the method and lets you simulate thousands of spins.