Online raffle drawing by ticket number

Make one row per ticket sold, with a header row on top, for example a single column called Ticket. If you sold numbered books from 0001 to 0500, the list is those 500 numbers, one per row. A second column for the seller or the book is fine if it helps you hand out prizes; every column appears in the winners table. A buyer with ten tickets sits on ten rows and has ten chances, the same as with paper stubs in a drum.

The draw has no idea which tickets were paid for. It only sees rows. Take unsold numbers out before you upload, and do not merge a buyer's tickets into one row. If you keep the list in a spreadsheet, set the ticket column to text before typing numbers with leading zeros, or 0042 will be saved as 42. Lists of up to 2,000,000 tickets and 50 MB are accepted.

After the upload, the form reports how many rows repeat another row. On a ticket list that number should be zero. Anything else means a ticket number is in the file twice, and that ticket would hold two chances.

Set the number of winners to the number of prizes. The winners table lists them in place order, first place at the top. Places are given out after the winning tickets are selected, by shuffling them, so a ticket near the top of your file has no better chance at first prize than one at the bottom. Write the prize list from first to last before the draw and match it to the places in that order.

Each row can be drawn only once, so a ticket never wins twice. A buyer can still win two prizes by holding two winning tickets. If your raffle allows one prize per person, say in the rules how that is handled, for example by drawing a few extra places and passing a buyer's second win to the next place down. The tool will not apply that rule for you.

At an event, put the draw form on a screen and run the last step with the room watching. Get the upload done before people gather: a large file can take minutes to upload, and the form asks you not to refresh the page while it does. When the draw completes, the result page opens with the winning tickets, the drawing number, the time and the number of tickets in the draw.

Then share the link. Ticket holders who were not in the room can open it later, download the ticket list, and check their numbers were in it. The draw ID at the top of the result goes into the verify page, which confirms the record has not changed since the moment it was published and shows a fingerprint that a downloaded copy of the list can be checked against. For a raffle sold online, post the link where you sold the tickets.

Rehearse with a test draw first. It goes through the same steps and shows winners, and nothing is saved. The uploaded file is discarded after a test too, so the real draw needs the file again.

Ticket numbers are what public draws are for: a list of numbers can be published without exposing anyone, and anyone holding a ticket can see the whole pool. If your list also carries buyer names or phone numbers, remove those columns before uploading, or use a private draw and give the password to ticket holders. A private draw costs the same as a public one.

A charity raffle of 1,200 tickets costs 12 tokens to publish, with any number of prizes. Other sizes are on the pricing page.

Raffles are regulated in many places. Some need a license or registered rules, and selling tickets often puts a raffle in a different legal category from a free prize draw. Check what applies where you hold it. The draw service picks winners and publishes the record; it does not check your raffle, and using it is not evidence that the raffle is lawful.