How to run a prize wheel spin
Everything happens on one page. The wheel sits front and centre; the entry editor sits beside it. Add a prize name in the text field and press Enter, or paste a whole list at once using the bulk import area — one prize per line. If you have a prepared spreadsheet, upload it as a .csv file and the first column becomes your prize list automatically.
Once your prizes are set, press the big Spin button below the wheel. The wheel spins for the duration you choose — 3, 5, or 10 seconds — then lands on a winner. A winner dialog opens immediately, showing the prize name and any emoji you attached to that entry. From there you can share the result to X (Twitter), WhatsApp, Facebook, or copy it to clipboard.
If you want each prize to be won only once during a session, switch on the Remove Winner toggle below the wheel. After each spin, the winning entry disappears from the pool, so the same prize can never come up twice. Spin until the wheel is empty and every prize has been claimed.
Customising your prize wheel prizes
The eight default entries are a starting point. Click the X next to any entry to remove it, or edit it inline by clicking directly on the label. You can reorder prizes by dragging the grip handle — useful if you want to arrange them in a logical sequence before you start. Sorting A-Z or Z-A is one click away if alphabetical order helps your workflow.
Each prize entry supports an optional emoji (shown on the wheel label) and an optional hex colour override, so a jackpot prize can stand out visually from the smaller consolation prizes. If you'd rather not set individual colours, choose one of the 16 named palette presets — Carnival, Neon, Candy, Sunset, and more — from the Customise panel. Hit Shuffle colors to reassign the palette order at random.
Weights are the most powerful customisation for a giveaway. Every entry starts at a weight of 1, meaning equal odds. Raise the weight on a consolation prize (say, Free Coffee) and it occupies a larger slice of the wheel and lands more often. Lower-weight entries are still in the draw — they just have a proportionally smaller slice. This is how carnival and trade-show prize wheels work: the big prizes appear narrower on the wheel, the small prizes appear wider.
Not sure what else to put on your wheel? Click the Ideas button and the AI suggestion tool will generate additional prize wheel ideas based on the context of your current list. It's useful when you're drawing a blank on filler prizes to pad out a longer draw.
Who uses a prize wheel — and how
Event hosts and brand activators
Trade shows, pop-ups, and product launches use prize spinners to pull foot traffic and reward engagement. A physical prize wheel takes up floor space and needs a person to operate it. An on-screen prize wheel runs on any tablet or laptop, needs no maintenance, and lets you change the prize list between sessions in under a minute. Set up the tablet at the booth, let visitors spin, and log every winner in the on-page spin history without touching a spreadsheet.
Streamers and content creators
Live-stream giveaways need a winner-picking moment that viewers can watch in real time. Paste subscriber names or usernames into the bulk import field, spin, and the result is right there on screen. You can share the winner text via the native share sheet or copy it to paste into your stream chat. The spin history below the wheel keeps a running log of every winner from the session, so you can screenshot the full results at the end.
Teachers and classroom managers
A prize wheel works as a classroom reward spinner just as easily as a giveaway tool. Load it with prizes like "Homework Pass", "Pick Your Seat", "Extra Credit", or "Brain Break", and use it to randomly reward participation. The hide (eye-toggle) feature lets you grey out prizes that have already been claimed this term without removing them from the list, so you can restore them next month without retyping.
HR teams and office managers
Employee appreciation events, team lunches, and end-of-quarter parties all benefit from a fair, visible draw. Instead of drawing names from a hat, run the draw on a screen everyone can see. Weight entries equally for a fair raffle, or give extra entries to employees with longer tenure by duplicating their name — the duplicate button copies an entry right below the original, which effectively doubles its odds.
Social media giveaway hosts
Running a giveaway on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook? Collect entrant names from your comments, paste them into the wheel via bulk import, and spin live in a story or reel. The winner dialog is clean and shareable. Because nothing is saved between sessions, every new giveaway starts fresh — there's no risk of an old entrant list carrying over.
Party organisers
Birthday parties, baby showers, and holiday office parties use prize spinners for games and activities. Pair this wheel with other party tools — the Party hub has several wheels for games and decisions — and you have a full suite of on-screen entertainment without downloading anything. The wheel works on any modern phone, tablet, or laptop, so the host can hand the device around the room.
Setting up a raffle draw — step by step
A raffle draw has different requirements from a prize wheel. In a prize wheel, every spin determines which prize is won. In a raffle draw, every spin determines which person wins. This wheel handles both cases — just change what you put in the entry list.
For a raffle picker, enter participant names instead of prize names. If participants bought multiple tickets, use the duplicate button to add extra entries for them — each duplicate has the same odds as the original, so doubling an entry effectively doubles that person's chance of winning. Bulk import makes this fast if you already have a ticket list in a .csv file.
Enable Remove Winner and spin once per prize. The first spin picks who wins Prize 1; that name vanishes from the pool; the next spin picks who wins Prize 2 from the remaining participants. This is a clean, auditable raffle process you can run on a screen in front of everyone.
The spin history section below the wheel records each winner in reverse order. At the end of the draw, you have a complete list of winners for the session. You can also explore the custom wheel generator if you want to build a wheel entirely from scratch for a more complex raffle format.
Prize wheel ideas — what to put on your wheel
The right prize list depends on your audience and budget. Here are ideas grouped by context.
- Retail and e-commerce: Discount 10%, Discount 20%, Free Shipping, Gift Card, Bonus Points, Free Product, Early Access, Mystery Box
- Food and hospitality: Free Coffee, Free Dessert, Free Lunch, Complimentary Upgrade, 2-for-1 Voucher, Loyalty Points
- Entertainment and events: Movie Tickets, Concert Tickets, VIP Access, Backstage Pass, Merchandise Bundle, Meet & Greet
- Office and HR: Extra Day Off, Flexible Friday, Lunch on the Company, Gift Voucher, Charity Donation in Their Name, Prime Parking Spot
- Classroom: Homework Pass, Sit Anywhere, Choose the Music, Brain Break, First in Line, Extra Credit
- Social media giveaway: Feature on the Page, Signed Merchandise, 1-on-1 Coaching Call, Early Product Access, Shoutout, Free Subscription
The Ideas button inside the editor can generate more suggestions automatically. If you spin prizes from a broader collection of wheels, you might find other inspiration for themed events.
How this compares to other prize wheel options
Google's built-in "random picker" spinner (accessed by searching "spinner" or "random picker") is a basic numbered wheel — it doesn't accept custom labels or prizes, and it has no entry management features. Dedicated sites like Wheel of Names offer custom entry lists and some visual options. What this tool adds is a tighter feature set focused on live events: per-entry weights for unequal prize odds, per-entry colour overrides so your jackpot slice stands out visually, a Remove Winner toggle for sequential raffle draws, and a session-level spin history that keeps a record without requiring an account. Everything runs in the browser with no sign-up, no download, and no limits on how many spins you run in a session.
Fair, visible, and free
Every spin is determined by a random process that runs entirely in the browser. There are no hidden settings that favour one entry over another beyond the weights you set yourself. The visual spin — the wheel actually turning and decelerating — is driven by that same random result, so what you see is what you get. Guests watching a live draw can see the wheel slow down and stop; there's no cut to a pre-determined result.
There's no account required, no per-spin fee, and no daily limit. Run a five-entry giveaway or a hundred-name raffle — the tool handles both without asking you to upgrade. For party games that need a different kind of random picker, check out the Truth or Dare wheel or the Twister spinner on the same site.