Lottery Ball Pit Picker
Bouncing balls — one gets drawn.
Built and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Last checked
Type entries into the list and each one becomes a labelled ball bouncing around a canvas pit; press Draw a ball and one leaps out as the winner. That bit of physics theatre suits classroom prize draws, giveaway streams, and family game nights. The winning ball is decided beforehand by your browser's crypto-grade random number generator — the bouncing never changes the odds.
Set. Paste the names or entries you want bouncing in the pit, one per line.
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- No history yet.
How it works
- Set. Paste the names or entries you want bouncing in the pit, one per line.
- Draw. Click "Draw a ball" and watch one ball drop out as the winner.
- Again. Draw again for the next winner whenever you're ready.
- History. Every drawn winner stays in the History list until you clear it.
About the Lottery Ball Pit Picker
The physics is decoration
The winning entry is chosen first, by the same unbiased cryptographic draw every picker here uses. The bouncing balls are then animated so that the pre-chosen ball drops out. Nothing about the collisions, the bounce or the timing influences who wins.
That matters because it means the fairness does not depend on your device. A slow phone and a fast desktop produce identically distributed results, which would not be true if the outcome emerged from a physics simulation running at whatever frame rate the browser managed.
Why a ball pit instead of a wheel
The two tools are mathematically identical and suit different list sizes. A wheel with a hundred slices is an unreadable grey disc; a pit with a hundred balls is a pleasing mess, and the drawn ball is legible even though the other ninety-nine are not.
So the rough rule is: wheels for a dozen names in a classroom, ball pit for a large list on a livestream. Both are worse than a plain picker when nobody is watching, because the entire value is the reveal.
Setting up a draw
- Your list is saved in this browser and editing it resets the pit.
- There is no seed, so a draw cannot be replayed. For a contested draw use a seeded tool and keep the seed.
- Nothing is removed between draws — the same entry can win twice unless you delete it yourself.
- The animation is heavy on very old devices; reduced-motion settings are respected.
Frequently asked questions
Is the winning ball decided by the physics?
No. The winner's index is picked first with the Web Crypto API (crypto.getRandomValues), then that specific ball is animated leaping out of the pit. The bouncing is theatre; the draw is a fair uniform pick.
What happens if I have reduced motion enabled?
The pit skips the constant bouncing animation. Drawing still works exactly the same — the winner is picked with the same fair method and announced in text below the canvas.
Why are long names shortened on the balls?
Labels longer than six characters are trimmed with an ellipsis so they fit on a ball. The full entry still appears in the winner announcement and in the History list, so nothing is actually lost.
Can the same ball win twice?
Yes — every entry stays in the pit between draws. To run a no-repeat giveaway, delete each winner's line from the list after their draw; the pit rebuilds automatically whenever you edit the entries.
Can I draw numbers instead of names?
Yes. Type each number on its own line and it becomes a ball. There's no automatic range generator here, so for a plain numeric draw like 1-500 the Random Number Generator is quicker.
Related randomizers
Further reading
- Running a multi-prize draw with the ball pit picker
A grand prize and a handful of runners-up need a different plan than a single winner. Here's how to sequence repeat draws in the lottery ball pit picker, decide whether winners stay in the pit, and read back the results afterward.
- Why a bouncing ball pit feels more honest than a text draw
The math behind a random pick is identical whether it's shown as plain text or a bouncing lottery ball. Here's why the ball pit picker's physical draw still matters, and how to use it for raffles, giveaways, and classroom picks.
- Wheel of Names: how to make 'just spin it' actually fair
Wheel pickers feel like magic, but most of them are rigged in tiny ways their creators never thought about. Here's how a fair wheel is supposed to work, and why the spin itself is theatre.