We needed to pick some winners for a promotion we recently ran on our Clucky Bingo site and googled “random number generator”. We weren’t surprised to see that Random.org was top of the pile – at least in terms of websites that offer a randomising service – but we were surprised to see a Google Tool offering a random number generator service. We’ve no idea how long this tool has been in action – and it’s quite possible we’re late to the party! But, we think it’s quite a nifty option and one that competition organisers may find very useful.
Picking Random Numbers
Google’s Random Number Generation tool is really simple to use! You simple set your minimum number and maximum number range. After that it’s simply a case of clicking ‘generate’ and your random number appears. If you need more than one number then you just click the generate button again, and again etc. It’s quick and simple to use!
Why Is This Tool Useful?
Not every prize draw promoter or competition organiser has access to a sophisticated “pick a winner” option. For example we usually use inbuilt random database queries to generate winners for the prize draws that we’ve run on Loquax in the past – such as our Lucky Duck giveaway. However for our Clucky Bingo promotion we simply had a list of player names on a spreadsheet. As each line is numbered we had a reference number for each player. Now we could have used the old patented “scroll up and down” until you say stop approach, but that’s not a good way to pick a winner! We’d not be surprised though if promoters still used it. We could also have printed out the names and placed them on individual bits of paper into a hat – but that’s far too much work!
Random.org
By using a third party service to “pick a number” we know that the prize draw process will be nice and random. The number range can be set from the first spreadsheet cell number (in our case 12) down to the last! Random.org is a good service, but we kind of think Google may well have stolen some of their thunder with this tool. If you’re running a competition or prize draw and need a random number generator to pick a winner then Google is once again your friend! Take a look and let us know whether you think it’s a useful tool.