Wheel Spinner

How to use the wheel spinner

1. Type your entries, one per line, in the box. The wheel redraws as you type, with one slice per entry. The list is saved in this browser so it is waiting next time.
2. Optional: tick Use weights and write an entry as Name | 3 to make its slice three times as likely as a slice with weight 1. Weights are whole numbers from 1 to 1,000.
3. Press Spin the wheel. The wheel turns and stops with the pointer on the winner, which is shown in large text and announced to screen readers.
4. Tick Remove the winner to take each winner off the wheel automatically, which is handy for drawing several prizes or turns. The results list keeps each winner in order, and Copy results copies it.

How the winner is chosen

The winner is decided before the wheel moves. Your browser's secure random generator draws one whole number from 0 up to the total weight minus 1, and the wheel walks along the entries until it reaches the one that contains that number. With equal weights that is a plain fair pick. With weights it is exactly weighted: entries with weights 1, 3 and 6 win 10 percent, 30 percent and 60 percent of the time.

The generator uses rejection sampling, which means draws that would make some entries slightly more likely are discarded and redrawn. Modulo bias, a common flaw in simple random pickers, is avoided. The animation then aims the wheel at a random point inside the winning slice. Spinning harder, clicking faster or resizing the window cannot change who wins.

Slice size matches weight, so what you see is what you get: with weights 1, 3 and 6 the slices cover 36, 108 and 216 degrees of the circle. Entries too thin to hold a readable label still count and still appear in the entry box.

Good uses and a few limits

A wheel suits classroom turns, giveaways among friends, deciding what to eat, ordering presenters and breaking ties in a way everyone can watch. For a list of names where you need teams or several winners at once, the random name picker is faster. For a simple yes or no, use the coin flip.

The wheel holds up to 60 entries and long names are shortened on the wheel itself, though the full name is shown in the result. Duplicate lines are allowed and count as separate slices, so adding a name twice doubles its chances. If you want every name once, remove duplicates first.

This tool is meant for casual decisions. Do not use it for lotteries, regulated drawings or any situation where legal rules govern how a winner must be picked.

Motion and accessibility

If your device is set to reduce motion, the wheel jumps straight to the result without spinning. Every control is a real button or field with a visible focus outline, the result is announced with a live region, and the wheel does not rely on color alone because each slice carries its own printed label. Results are also written in the list below the wheel in plain text.

Assumptions and limits

• Each entry's chance is its weight divided by the total weight. With weights off, every line has weight 1.
• The wheel holds 60 entries and 80 characters per entry. Longer names are cut off in the picture only.
• Entries are saved in this browser on this device so they survive a reload. Results history lives only in the open tab. Nothing is sent to a server.
• Randomness comes from the browser's secure generator. This is appropriate for casual decisions, not for regulated games of chance.

Formulas reviewed October 10, 2026. See the calculation methodology for how SumPanda rounds, tests and sources its formulas.

Frequently asked questions