Random Order Picker
Enter one name per line and press Spin to draw first place. The name drawn leaves the wheel, so keep pressing and you get a full running order with no repeats. Unlike a plain wheel, nobody can be drawn twice. Your input never leaves the browser.
How to use the random order picker
Enter the participants one per line and press Spin. Each press locks in one place, and it runs to the end by itself.
- Enter one name per line: names or numbers both work. Blank lines are ignored.
- Press Spin for first place: whoever it stops on takes first place and leaves the wheel.
- Keep going to the end: only the remaining names spin. When one name is left it is placed last automatically and the button stops. Copy order gives you the numbered list to paste anywhere.
Editing the list part way through resets the order and starts over, so settle the participants before you begin.
How this differs from a plain wheel
An ordinary wheel draws from every option every time, so spinning five times for five people will produce repeats. To use it for ordering you have to delete each winner by hand between spins, and sooner or later you forget one.
This tool removes each name automatically. The first spin draws from five, the second from the remaining four, and so on, so everybody is picked exactly once. Mathematically it selects one permutation at random: with five people, one of the 120 possible orders, each equally likely.
The last name is not spun for
Once a single name remains, its position is already determined. Spinning again would tell you nothing, so it is appended automatically and the run ends. The Spin button becomes unavailable at that point.
When to use it
Presentation order
For seminars or team demos. The order stays on screen, so you can paste it straight into a chat to share.
Chore rotations
Settle a whole cycle of cleaning, bin duty or minute-taking in one go, then reuse the same list in following weeks.
Turn order in games
Faster and fairer than a play-off. Enter everyone and run it through in one sitting.
Seating and line-up order
Works for queues and rows too. If you want an actual seating chart rather than an order, use the seating chart.
Why it is fair
On each spin the winner is drawn from the remaining names with Math.random() before the wheel moves, and the rotation is calculated so that slice stops under the pointer. With n names left, each has a one in n chance. Repeating that makes every possible order equally likely, which is the same property as a Fisher-Yates shuffle.
The animation is presentation only. To pick just one name, use the roulette; to split people into groups, use the random picker and team splitter.
Agree on the stakes first
Arguments about running order usually happen when one position is clearly better or worse: going first is nerve-racking, moving first is an advantage, the first week of a rota is the annoying one. Saying that out loud before the draw takes most of the sting out of the result. If the advantage is large, agree now that the next round runs in reverse.
Where no position is really better, discussing it costs more than it saves, so just run the draw.
Keeping the order
Copy order puts the numbered list on your clipboard, ready to paste into a chat or minutes. For a recurring rota, save that list and reuse it instead of drawing again each week.
With larger groups
Slices are divided evenly, so the more names there are the thinner each slice becomes and the harder the labels are to read. Beyond about ten people the wheel stops being the point and the list below becomes the useful part. Shortening long names helps.
To divide people into teams instead of ordering them, use the random picker and team splitter; for a knockout draw, use the tournament bracket maker.