Spin the Wheel

Pick a name, a winner, a chore or tonight’s dinner by spinning a wheel. Type the entries one per line, spin, and the wheel lands on a random slice. Each entry has the same chance, and you can remove each winner so the next spin picks someone new.

How to use the Spin the Wheel

1. Type or paste the entries, one per line. Commas work too.
2. Press Spin and wait for the wheel to stop under the pointer.
3. Read the winner under the wheel.
4. Tick “Remove the winner” to take each winner off for the next spin, for example when choosing an order.

Six names

With six names on the wheel, each one has a 1 in 6 chance, about 16.7%, on every spin. With “Remove the winner” ticked, the next spin is 1 in 5 for each remaining name, then 1 in 4, so six spins put everyone in a random order.

How the winner is chosen

The winner is decided before the animation starts, using your browser’s secure random number generator, and the wheel is then turned so that the winning slice stops under the pointer. The speed and number of turns don’t change the odds. If a name appears twice in the list, it gets two slices and twice the chance, so check for duplicates.

Common mistakes

• Listing the same name twice by accident, which doubles that name’s chance.
• Respinning until you like the answer. Decide before you spin that the first result counts.
• Forgetting to untick “Remove the winner” when you want the same list for every spin, such as choosing who does the dishes each night.

Frequently asked questions