How to Use the Wheel

This walks through building your first wheel in SpinForFree and running a live draw, from a blank account to a published winner.

1. Create your wheel

After you sign up, one wheel is already waiting on your dashboard. Give it a name — the event, the class, the giveaway — and open it to start adding entries.

2. Add names

Type names in one at a time, or paste a whole list — one per line, or separated by commas or semicolons. Duplicates are skipped automatically, so pasting a messy roster twice won’t double anyone’s odds. Each name gets an automatic colour that doesn’t clash with the others already on the wheel; override any of them by hand if you want a specific look.

3. Set the odds, if you need to

By default every name gets an equal slice. If some entries should have better or worse odds — extra raffle tickets, seniority, a handicap — give them a weight instead. The wheel redraws itself to scale, so the size of each slice always matches its real probability. Nobody has to take your word for the odds; they can see them.

4. Configure how the draw behaves

• Spin duration — from a snappy second to a drawn-out twenty, for however long you want people watching the wheel turn.
• Elimination mode — turn this on and each winner drops off the wheel after they’re picked, so a raffle never lands on the same person twice.
• Bench a name — toggle someone off for a single round without deleting them; their win count and history stay intact and they’re back next spin.
• Schedule a spin — arm the wheel to draw itself at a set time. Anyone on the share link sees a live countdown, then the result, with nobody needing to be at the keyboard to press Spin.

5. Share it

Every wheel gets one link. Anyone who opens it watches the exact same spin land on the exact same name at the exact same moment — there’s no separate “viewer” version that could show something different. Turn sharing off any time to kill the link for everyone but you, or regenerate it to cut off people who had the old one.

Presenting on a projector or streaming to OBS? Open the wheel in stream mode for a clean, full-screen view with no site chrome around it — you can still trigger the spin from your dashboard on another screen or tab.

6. Let people enter themselves (optional)

If you don’t want to type every name yourself, turn on public entries and share the join link instead. People submit their own name, a contact number and a proof screenshot if you ask for one. Nothing lands on the wheel until you review and approve it, so the list stays yours to curate.

7. Press spin

The winner is chosen on the server, not in anyone’s browser, using a cryptographic random source weighted by each slice — see the About page for exactly how that works. The result is written to your draw history before it’s sent to any screen.

8. After the spin

Every draw is timestamped and listed on the wheel’s history. Log what a winner actually received on the winners page, and publish the receipt if you want a public record — handy for giveaways where people want proof a prize was really paid out.

Next

• Frequently asked questions about fairness, repeat winners and entry limits.
• Looking for inspiration? See classroom, team building and giveaway ideas.