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    Spin the wheel

    Write your choices, one per line, then spin the wheel.

    The choice drawn will show here.

    Ready-made wheels

    Spin the wheel online, with your own choices

    To spin the wheel, click Spin the wheel, tap the wheel itself or press the space bar: it turns five to seven times, slows down for just over 5 seconds, and the white pointer at the top lands on a slice, whose text is also written out above the wheel. To use your own choices, replace the six sample names in the list on the right, one choice per line, from 2 to 100, and the wheel redraws as you type. For example, with 8 dinner ideas each slice has exactly a 1 in 8 chance of coming up, wherever it sits on the wheel. The result is drawn before the wheel moves, by the browser's cryptographic generator, and the animation only reveals it. The limit: beyond about thirty slices the text gets small, and a list-based draw is easier to read.

    How to use it

    Replace the sample names with your own choices, one per line: the wheel redraws with one slice per line. Click Spin the wheel, click the wheel itself or press the space bar. The Sound button turns the ticking that goes with the slowdown on or off.

    To run several spins without landing on the same choice twice (running order, handing out roles), tick Remove the choice drawn: its slice disappears after each spin. The ready-made wheels fill the list in one click: yes or no, numbers 1 to 10, days of the week, dinner ideas.

    Wheel ideas

    At school, the wheel picks the pupil who answers, the topic of a presentation, a revision question or the end-of-week reward, which works well in a bilingual class practising French vocabulary. At a party, it chooses truth or dare, a forfeit, who picks the music or which board game to play. Day to day, it settles dinner, the film to watch, the weekend outing or whose turn it is for the chores.

    On a stand or in a shop, shown full screen, it can run a discount or small-gift game; in France, a promotional game is subject to its published rules. With a long list of entrants, or to draw several winners at once, the random name picker is more practical: it draws as many names as you need, forms teams and keeps a timed history.

    A fair wheel: chance first, animation second

    On a real fairground wheel, the strength of the spin and friction decide. On screen, a wheel whose stopping point depended on how long you held the click or how fast the computer is would not be fair. Here the winning choice is drawn before the wheel moves, by the browser's cryptographic random number generator (crypto.getRandomValues), with exactly the same probability for every slice.

    The animation is worked out afterwards: five to seven full turns, then a slowdown that brings the winning slice under the pointer, at a spot within the slice that is itself drawn at random, so the wheel does not always stop in the middle. The wheel only shows a result that has already been decided and cannot change it.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does the wheel really stop at random, or does the animation affect the result?

    The result is drawn before the wheel starts turning, by the browser's cryptographic generator, with the same probability for every slice. The animation then works out a spin that stops on that slice, at a spot also picked at random within it. Neither the speed of your click nor the moment you press makes any difference to the outcome, so nobody can learn to aim.

    How many choices can I put on the wheel?

    From 2 to 100. Beyond about thirty slices the text gets small, so shorten it (a first name, a number) or use the random name picker instead, which is easier to read for a long list of entrants. Text too long for its slice is cut off on the wheel, but the result shown above the wheel is always written out in full.

    How do I give one choice a better chance?

    Write it several times in the list: a choice that appears three times takes three slices and is three times as likely to come up. It is the most transparent way to weight a draw, because everyone can see on the wheel how much room each choice takes. For a fair draw, check the opposite before spinning: that no name appears twice.

    Can I show the wheel on a projector or during a live stream?

    Yes. Full screen enlarges the wheel to fill the screen, ideal for a classroom projector, a stand at a fair or a live stream on social media. The ticking sound, which you can switch off in one click, marks the slowdown. The space bar spins the wheel again whenever the cursor is not inside the list of choices.

    Why does the pointer never stop exactly on the line between two slices?

    Because the stopping point is drawn between 10% and 90% of the width of the winning slice. That way nobody can argue about a stop on the line: the pointer always clearly shows a single slice, and the result is also written out above the wheel. The stopping point changes from one spin to the next, so the wheel does not always stop in the middle of a slice.

    Sources

    More tools: time and random draws