Guide
How to Pick a Giveaway Winner
The draw takes five seconds. Everything that makes it credible happens before and after it.
Before you announce the giveaway
Most disputes come from rules that were never written down. Decide these first and publish them with the giveaway itself:
- How many winners, and what each one gets.
- Who is eligible — countries, minimum age (many promotions are 18+ or need a parent's consent), whether employees or family are excluded.
- When entries close, with a timezone. "Friday" starts an argument; "Friday 11:59pm ET" does not.
- How duplicate entries are treated. One entry per person, or does every action earn another chance? Only give extra entries for free actions: if they can be bought, or come with a purchase, the giveaway can legally become a lottery unless there is an equally good free way to enter.
- How the draw happens. "A random wheel, drawn live on Saturday" is enough detail.
- How long a winner has to respond before you redraw. 48 hours is common.
If it is not written down before entries open, you cannot introduce it afterwards without it looking like you changed the rules to suit an outcome.
Preparing the entry list
This is where accuracy matters far more than the spin.
- Export the entries to a spreadsheet — comments, form responses, whatever your entry mechanic was.
- Remove ineligible entries now, not after the draw. Disqualifying a winner afterwards is the fastest way to lose an audience.
- Deduplicate, unless multiple entries are meant to be multiple chances. Your spreadsheet's *Remove duplicates* takes ten seconds.
- If extra entries earn extra chances, do not paste a name five times — use weighting:
@handle *5. The result window then reports that entrant's real probability, which answers "why did they win" far better than a list with repeats in it. - Check the count against your entry total before you spin. The number under the entrant box should match.
Running the draw
Open the giveaway winner picker and paste the list in.
- Leave remove-after-spin on for multiple prizes so nobody wins twice.
- Press Fullscreen if you are recording — no menus, no browser chrome.
- Set the spin to Dramatic (eight seconds) in the options. Five feels rushed on camera.
- Show the entry count and the odds before you spin. Both are on the strip under the wheel.
- Record in one take. A cut is the first thing a sceptical viewer notices.
- Read the winner twice — off the wheel, then off the result window.
- For several prizes, keep spinning; each winner leaves the wheel automatically.
After the draw
Publish the record. Copy in the winners panel gives you a table with position, name, probability, spin ID and timestamp. Post it. Almost nobody will check it, and that is the point — the ability to check is what stops people wanting to.
Contact winners privately, and announce publicly only once they confirm. Announcing first and then discovering an ineligible winner is a mess.
Say what happens if nobody responds. You already published the window; follow it exactly, and if you redraw, say so and show it.
Keep the entry list for as long as the giveaway could reasonably be questioned. Deleting it immediately looks worse than keeping it.
Do not delete the losing spins. If you recorded five draws and published three, someone will notice.
The giveaway checklist
Everything above, as a list to tick off.
Before entries open
- Rules published: prizes, number of winners, eligibility, closing time with a timezone, duplicate policy, how the draw works and how long winners have to respond.
- The platform's own rules for promotions checked, along with any legal requirements for your prize and location.
- Decided whether extra actions earn extra entries, and how those entries will be weighted. Extra entries come only from free actions, never from a payment or a purchase.
Before the draw
- Entries exported to a spreadsheet, with a copy kept.
- Ineligible entries removed and duplicates handled the way the rules say.
- The entry count on the wheel matches the spreadsheet.
- Recording set up for one take, with the wheel in Fullscreen and the spin length set to Dramatic.
During the draw
- Entry count and odds shown on screen before the first spin.
- One spin per prize, with each winner removed before the next draw.
- Every winner read from the result window, not only from the wheel.
After the draw
- Result log copied from the winners panel and published.
- Winners contacted privately, and announced only once they confirm.
- The response window followed exactly, with any redraw shown.
- Entry list and recording kept for as long as the giveaway could reasonably be questioned.
What a wheel can and cannot prove
Be precise about this, especially if you are the one making the claim.
What is genuinely true: the draw uses crypto.getRandomValues(); the winner is chosen before the animation, so the spin cannot be nudged; every entrant's probability is exactly their share of the wheel; and each result exposes its raw draw and arithmetic.
What is not true: that the draw is audited or independently verifiable. Everything runs in your browser. You could have edited the list between spins, or not shown the spins you did not like — and no client-side tool can prevent that.
So describe it accurately: "drawn at random using a cryptographic random number generator, with the full result log published". That is checkable and true. "Provably fair" is not.
If the prize value or your jurisdiction brings legal requirements into play, follow those rather than a blog post. Rules for prize draws vary a lot between states and countries.
Running a prize draw? Wheel Cue is a free random picker. It does not organise, sell entries for, check or approve any raffle, lottery, sweepstake or giveaway, and nothing on this site is legal advice. The rules are yours to follow, and they vary by place: if people pay to take part, it is usually a lottery that only non-profits, typically with a licence or registration, may run; in the US, a promotion tied to a purchase needs a free way to enter, and some states require registration for larger prizes; in Canada, winners are usually asked a skill-testing question; in parts of Australia, some prize draws need a permit; in Italy, a business's prize draw (concorso a premio) must be notified to the Ministry and drawn before a notary or a Chamber of Commerce official. Check the rules where you and your entrants are.
Frequently asked questions
Should I remove duplicate entries?
Yes, unless multiple entries are meant to be multiple chances — and say which in your rules. If extra entries do earn extra chances, use weighting rather than pasting a name repeatedly.
How do I draw more than one winner?
Leave Remove each winner before the next draw on and spin once per prize. Each winner leaves the wheel, so nobody wins twice.
What if the winner doesn't respond?
Follow the response window you published before entries opened — 48 hours is common. If you redraw, say so publicly and show the redraw.
Should I record the draw?
If the audience is large enough to care, yes, and in one take. A cut in the recording is the first thing a sceptical viewer notices.
Can I say the draw was provably fair?
No. Say it was drawn at random with a cryptographic random number generator and publish the result log — that is accurate and checkable. Nothing running only in your own browser is provable to anyone else.
Do I need to follow legal rules?
Yes: the rules that apply where you and your entrants are. They vary between states and countries and can depend on whether entry is free and on the prize: some places require registration, a permit, a free way to enter, a skill-testing question, or a notary or official at the draw. If anyone pays to enter, it is usually a lottery that only licensed non-profits may run. Check with your local regulator; Wheel Cue cannot advise on it.
Make your own wheel
Add your choices, spin once and let Wheel Cue make the pick.