How Plinko Pick works
A fair, transparent random name picker inspired by the Plinko board from casino game shows — with provably fair, crypto-secure selection. Import names, drop the ball, and reveal a winner for your giveaway, livestream, raffle, or community event.
A two-layer system
Layer 1 — Selection (server)
A cryptographically secure RNG picks the winning entry uniformly from the eligible entries. This is the source of truth and runs on the server, so the client cannot tamper with it.
Layer 2 — Reveal (animation)
The Plinko ball physically collides with pegs as it falls, then lands in the slot mapped to the chosen winner. The physics reveal the outcome; they do not determine it.
We say this plainly: the winner is not physics-determined. The physical simulation is a fair, disclosed reveal of an independently chosen result, with a deterministic slot mapping so the ball finishes at the correct displayed winner.
- 1
Add your entries
Type or paste names — one per line, or comma-separated. Import a CSV or text file. Plinko Pick de-duplicates and validates up to 500 entries.
- 2
Set the prize & mode
Name the prize and pick a draw mode: independent, remove-winner, or no-repeat-until-reset. The prize and mode never affect the random selection.
- 3
The server picks the winner
When you drop the ball, a secure server function selects the winner using the Web Crypto API with rejection sampling — every eligible entry has an exactly equal chance. The result is recorded before the animation runs.
- 4
The board reveals it
The Plinko ball physically bounces through the pegs and lands in the slot mapped to the already-chosen winner. The animation reveals the outcome; it does not decide it.
- 5
Verify on the audit page
Every draw creates an immutable record: draw ID, timestamp, entry-snapshot hash, selection method, and a cryptographic commit. The public audit page lets anyone verify a draw without seeing participant names.
Fairness & security
- Winner selection runs server-side using the Web Crypto API (
crypto.getRandomValues) with rejection sampling, so every entry has an exactly equal chance. Math.random is never used. - No admin, sponsor, advertiser, or hidden parameter can favor an entry. Weighted entries are an explicit, opt-in, disclosed mode — off by default.
- Each draw produces an immutable record with a SHA-256 entry-snapshot hash and a cryptographic commit, stored before the animation runs.
- The public audit view verifies results without exposing private participant data.
Importing names
Paste almost any list and Plinko Pick extracts one participant per intended entry. Comma-separated, newline, semicolon, tab, CSV, TSV, numbered lists, bullets, quoted fields, and copied social-media comments are all supported. Multi-word names like “Mary Jones” stay together — a space inside a name is never treated as a separator, and a comma inside a quoted CSV field is never a delimiter.
- • Case-insensitive duplicate detection that preserves original display casing.
- • Optional ticket-count column, only with explicit confirmation.
- • Instant preview for up to 1,000 entries, with practical limits for larger lists.
- • Pasted text is parsed locally and never sent to an external AI service.
Live drawings
Create a live room with a unique, shareable code and URL for Facebook Live, YouTube, Twitch, or Discord. Viewers join a read-only 16:9 stage in real time — no account needed to watch. The host controls the drop, countdown, reveal, and next round; the winner is chosen server-side and synced to every viewer, so a viewer client can never decide or alter the result.
Privacy
The public game works without an account. Your entry lists and winner history are stored locally in your browser. Anonymous usage analytics (page views, draw counts) help improve the product and never include participant names. Draw records stored on Cloud for verifiability contain only selection metadata and a snapshot hash — never the full entry list. See our Privacy Policy.