Random Picker — Ladder, Wheel, Teams

Random Picker
A ladder game, a spinning wheel and a team splitter, all reproducible from a link.
Names — one per line
Outcomes — one per line
One winner
Running order
Chores
Two names and at least one outcome are needed.
Draw #1 — the same number always gives the same result.
Press "Climb down" to trace every line at once.

Three ways to let chance decide, in one place: a ladder game where everyone traces a line down to whatever they land on, a wheel you spin, and a splitter that deals a list of names into teams. Every draw is numbered, and the number goes into the link — so you can send the result to the group and they see the same outcome on their own screen instead of taking your word for it.

How to use Random Picker — Ladder, Wheel, Teams

  1. Type the names, one per line. The list is shared across all three modes, so you only enter it once.
  2. For the ladder, add the outcomes underneath — one per line, matching up with the names. The chips fill in the common cases: one winner and the rest nothing, a running order, or a list of chores.
  3. Press the button and watch. The ladder traces every lane at once, the wheel spins for three and a half seconds, and the team splitter deals everyone out immediately.
  4. For the wheel, "take them out and spin again" removes whoever just won, which is how you draw several winners in a row without anyone winning twice.
  5. For teams, set how many groups you want. Leave the even-sizes toggle on and the sizes will differ by at most one.
  6. Copy the link to share the exact draw. Opening it loads the same names and the same draw number, so it replays identically.

Tips & gotchas

  • The draw number under the buttons is the whole result. Same number and same names always give the same outcome, which is what makes a shared link convincing rather than just a claim.
  • Press "new draw" before you run it if someone wants a re-do — otherwise the same number produces the same answer and it looks fixed.
  • A ladder naturally leaves its outer lanes near where they started. A rung swaps two neighbours, and the leftmost and rightmost lanes have only one neighbour each, so they move half as often as the ones in the middle — and across ten-odd rows there is barely an opportunity to cross from one end to the other.
  • So the draw here is shuffled first, and the ladder is then laid out to produce it. With six names, every name has exactly the same 16.7% chance of any outcome. Measured on the older scattered-rungs version, the leftmost name landed on the leftmost outcome 31% of the time and on the rightmost one 3% — a tenfold gap.
  • The ladder is still drawn in full before the run. Tracing it by eye works exactly as it did; the only thing that changed is that every outcome is now equally likely.
  • Fewer outcomes than names is allowed; they repeat down the row. Six people and two outcomes splits them three and three.
  • Names and outcomes are kept in this browser, so a list you use every week is still there next time.

Frequently asked questions

Is the draw actually random?

It is drawn from a seeded generator rather than from the system's randomness, and that is deliberate. A seeded draw can be replayed from a link, which is what lets everyone else verify the result instead of trusting the person who ran it. The number is chosen unpredictably when the page opens, so nobody knows the outcome in advance; once it exists, the draw it produces is fixed and shareable.

Can the person running it rig the result?

They could press "new draw" until they liked what they saw, which is true of any physical draw too. What the link does is stop them changing the result after the fact — once the number is shared, the outcome it produces is the outcome everyone else sees. Agree the number before you reveal the names for a draw nobody can argue with.

How does the ladder game work?

Each name starts at the top of its own vertical line. Going down, every horizontal rung swaps you onto the neighbouring line. Because two rungs are never allowed to touch the same column on one row, the path is never ambiguous, and because the swaps are reversible, no two people can ever land on the same outcome. Everyone gets exactly one, which is what makes it better than drawing straws for assigning a list of tasks.

What is the limit on names?

Forty. The wheel becomes unreadable long before that and the ladder gets crowded past a dozen or so, but the team splitter is comfortable with the full list.

Does the team splitter really shuffle properly?

Yes — it uses a Fisher-Yates shuffle, which is the one that gives every possible arrangement an equal chance. The naive approach of sorting by a random number does not, and it quietly favours certain orderings. After the shuffle the names are dealt out one at a time, which is what keeps the group sizes even.