Paste a list of names and draw winners at random, with a suspense animation and no repeats.
This is the digital version of pulling folded papers out of a hat. You paste the list of participants, say how many names to draw, and the tool picks them at random — with a short animation cycling through the names first, because a draw that resolves instantly always feels less convincing to the people watching. Empty lines are ignored and each line is trimmed, so a column pasted straight out of a spreadsheet needs no cleanup.
Under the hood the list is shuffled with the Fisher-Yates algorithm, driven by the browser cryptographic random generator (crypto.getRandomValues) with rejection sampling to avoid modulo bias. The first N names of that shuffle become the winners, which guarantees distinct results without any name being favoured by its position in the list. If you allow repeats, each draw is an independent pick instead, so the same name really can come up more than once. Duplicate lines are never removed on purpose: a name written three times has three chances, which is exactly what you want when entries are earned.
The "Remove drawn names from the list" mode turns the picker into a sequential draw. Each winner is taken out of the box and added to the "Already drawn" history, so you can keep clicking to distribute several prizes, define a presentation order, run a Secret Santa round or call people up one by one without ever repeating someone. Everything happens in your browser: participant names are never uploaded, which matters when the list contains employees, students or customers.
Yes. It uses a Fisher-Yates shuffle powered by the browser cryptographic random generator, so every participant has exactly the same chance regardless of where they appear in the list.
Yes. Set "How many names to draw" to the number of winners and they are drawn together, all distinct — unless you tick the option that allows the same name to be drawn more than once.
Tick "Remove drawn names from the list". Each drawn name leaves the list and moves to the history, so you can click again for the next prize with no repeats.
No. Every non-empty line counts as one entry, so a name repeated three times has three chances. Deduplicate the list first if you want one entry per person.
No. The list stays on your device and the draw runs 100% in JavaScript. Nothing is transmitted or stored, which makes it safe for lists of employees, students or customers.
Vai.la turns any URL into a short link with click statistics, QR Code and your own biolink.
Vai.la is not responsible for how the tools are used or for decisions made based on their results.