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Secret Santa wheel for the opening order

This wheel draws the order a Secret Santa runs in — who opens next, who picks from the pile first — and not who buys for whom. Put the group on it, leave elimination on, and everybody comes up exactly once.

This wheel is already set up for the job. Open it in the editor to change the list, the machine or the odds.

Every spin draws from your browser’s cryptographic random source. How a draw is made sets out the method and its limits.

Open this wheel in the editor

Does this decide who gives to whom?

No, and it would be the wrong tool for it. Assigning givers to receivers has to stay hidden from the person running it, which is exactly what a wheel everybody is watching cannot do — the whole room would see the pairing, including you.

Use a dedicated draw for the assignment, then use this for everything that happens in public afterwards. That is a real division of the job rather than a limitation: the part that must be secret and the part that must be seen want opposite tools.

What is the order actually for?

Opening. A Secret Santa of eight people with no order is eight people opening at once and nobody watching anybody, which is the one thing the format exists to avoid. Drawing the sequence takes ten seconds and gives every gift its moment.

It settles the smaller questions too: who picks first from a pile of unlabelled parcels, who goes next in a steal round, and which name buys in which week when a group is spreading the cost.

How do I run it when half the group is remote?

Press Share. The link opens the same wheel with the same names on anybody’s device, so the people in the room and the people on the call are looking at one list even if only one person spins.

For a video call, add ?embed=1 to the link: the page renders the wheel and the result alone, with no toolbar around it. That is what a shared tab or an OBS browser source wants — the wheel, full size, and nothing to explain.

What else is this wheel good for?

It is the name wheel with elimination on. If the parcels are numbered rather than named, the number wheel draws the number and the label stays on the gift.

Away from December the same draw is a presentation order. If you are drawing one winner from many rather than an order for everybody, that is a prize wheel.

Questions about Secret Santa draws

No — and it should not pretend to, because it is not making assignments. This wheel draws an order for a group, and an order has no such thing as your own name in it. A pairing tool is what carries that rule, and this is not one.

More people than a gift exchange has, though labels stop being readable long before the rim runs out of room. For an office group of twenty the names still read at arm’s length on a laptop, and fullscreen carries forty across a room.

Yes. Save it and it is in your list; signed in, it is on whichever device you open next December. The names are the part that takes the effort, and they do not have to be typed twice.

Not unless you publish it deliberately. The wheel runs on your device, saving keeps it to your browser or your account, and the gallery only ever holds wheels somebody chose to publish and a person then read.