A raffle where the tickets count
In a real raffle somebody who bought five tickets has five chances, not one. A wheel of equal slices cannot do that, so this one gives every name as much of the circle as it has tickets. Press SPIN!:
Carla bought five tickets and has the widest slice; Ben bought one and has the narrowest. The list beside the wheel writes out what that means as a percentage, so nobody has to work it out:
Writing the tickets in
One person per line, with the number of tickets at the end after an x:
Anna|x3– three tickets.Ben– one ticket; a line without a number is worth one.Carla|#fdd835|x5– a colour and then the tickets, in that order.- Paste the list from a spreadsheet and add the numbers afterwards.
Draw the winners
Under Options, Take the winner off the wheel removes a name once it has won, so the second prize goes to somebody else – and the odds of everybody left go up, exactly as they would with paper tickets in a hat:
Past winners is the record of the draw, in order:
The counter, for the sceptics
Counter keeps a tally of every spin: how many times each name has come up, what share of the spins that is, and what share it should be. After a hundred spins the two columns are close, which is what fair looks like:
Where it is used
- School and club raffles where tickets are sold in strips.
- Charity draws: a donation is a ticket, a bigger donation is more tickets.
- Online giveaways with bonus entries for sharing or commenting.
- Any draw where somebody will ask “how do I know it is fair?” – the answer is on screen.