Wheel Spinner

How to use this wheel spinner

1. Put your options in the Entries box, one per line. Paste a whole list if you have one; the wheel redraws as you type.
2. Click the wheel, press the Spin button in the middle, or hit Ctrl + Enter. The wheel spins for three, six or ten seconds depending on the Spin time you choose.
3. Read the result in the window that opens. Spin again, remove the winner from the list, or close it and keep the list as it is.
4. Check the Results tab for everything the wheel has picked this session, in order. Copy it to a document when you are done.
5. Save or share the wheel. Saved wheels stay in your browser; a share link carries the whole list inside the URL.

The spinner wheel is built for the two situations that come up most: a teacher who needs to call on students fairly, and a group that cannot decide. Both work the same way. Type the options, spin, accept the answer. For a class, turn on Remove winner after each spin so every student is picked exactly once before the list runs out.

Is the spinner wheel really random?

Yes, and you can test it rather than take it on trust. The winning slice is decided the instant you click, with the same cryptographic random number generator browsers use for security. The spinning animation starts after that decision and simply carries the wheel to the chosen slice, slowing down on a fixed curve. How long you wait, where the wheel was pointing before, and how hard you "click" make no difference.

Each spin in the simulator uses exactly the picker the real wheel uses. Run it a few times and the bars will wander above and below the dashed line, but never far, and never in the same direction twice. If a slice came up far more often than the others run after run, that would be a rigged wheel; this one does not do that. The full explanation, including the statistics, is on is the wheel spinner random.

Weighted entries: give some options better odds

Sometimes equal odds are not what you want. A raffle where one person bought three tickets, a decision where one option is the sensible default, a game where the rare prize should stay rare. Add an asterisk and a number after any entry and that entry gets that many shares of the wheel.

Write Pizza*3 and pizza takes up three times the space of an entry with no weight. The slice grows to match, so the wheel itself shows the odds. An entry with weight 0 stays on the list but can never be picked, which is a handy way to park an option without deleting it.

What people use a spin the wheel for

A random wheel is a decision you have agreed to accept in advance. That is why it works where arguing does not. The uses below each link to a page with a wheel already set up for that job.

• Pick a student to answerPaste the class list, turn on Remove winner, and call on everyone once before anyone twice.Open the tool →
• Split a group into teamsShuffle a list into even teams for games, projects or icebreakers.Open the tool →
• Draw a giveaway winnerPaste entrants, spin once in full screen, and share the link so people can see the list was fair.Open the tool →
• What's for dinnerStop debating. Put the options on the wheel and eat whatever it says.Start with this wheel →
• Yes or no, right nowA coin flip with a bit more drama, plus a Maybe if you want one.Open the tool →
• Game night challengesTruth or dare, forfeits, which game to play next — anything with options becomes a wheel.Start with this wheel →

Teachers are the biggest group of spinner users, and they tend to use it every day: who reads the next paragraph, which group presents first, which review category comes up next. The spinner wheel for the classroom page collects ten of those routines with ready-made lists. For splitting a class into even groups the random team generator does the dealing for you, and for a quick decision between two answers the yes or no wheel spins without any typing at all.

Save, share and present your wheel

Everything stays in your browser unless you choose otherwise. Save wheel gives the current list a name and keeps it in local storage, so the Friday reward wheel or the roster for period three is one click away next week. Share link encodes the whole list into the address of this page. Send it to a colleague, pin it in a group chat, or open it on the classroom computer and the wheel appears exactly as you left it. Nothing is uploaded; the list travels inside the link itself.

For a projector or an interactive whiteboard, press Full screen. The wheel grows to fill the screen, the editing panel disappears, and a tap anywhere on the wheel spins it. Sound and confetti are on by default and can be switched off in the panel; the choice is remembered for next time.

More spinner wheels

The wheel on this page takes any list. The pages below are the same spinner wheel with the list already filled in and a few extra controls for the job: a random name picker that can draw several names at once, a random letter generator for word games, a random number wheel with ranges for dice and bingo, and a random country generator with all 195 countries and their capitals.