How to Make a Spin the Wheel: Online, on Your Phone or With Paper

The fastest way to make a spin the wheel is online: type your options, one per line, and press Spin. On a phone it works the same way in your browser, and you can save it to your home screen. For a wheel you can hold, a paper circle, a pencil and a paperclip are enough. This guide covers all three.

Option 1: Make a wheel online in under a minute

1. Open the spin the wheel page.
2. Delete the sample names and type your own options, one per line. You can paste a whole column from a spreadsheet.
3. Optional: add *2 after an option to give it twice the chance, or tick “Remove winner after each spin” for no repeats.
4. Press Spin. Your list saves in your browser automatically.
5. To use the same wheel on another device, press Copy share link and open the link there.

Need a head start? Ready-made wheels already have the entries filled in: the yes or no wheel, number wheel, letter wheel, color wheel and random name picker.

Option 2: Make a spin wheel on your phone

You don’t need an app. The online wheel runs in your phone’s browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app:

• iPhone (Safari): open the wheel, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android (Chrome): open the wheel, tap the three-dot menu, then Add to Home screen.

Turn on Full screen when you hand the phone round a group, so the wheel fills the screen.

Option 3: Make a paper spinner

Paper spinners are great for board games, classrooms and crafts. Here are three tried-and-tested designs, from quickest to sturdiest.

The pencil and paperclip spinner (2 minutes)

This is the classic classroom method described by NRICH: draw a circle, divide it into sections and mark the centre. Put a paperclip on the centre dot, hold a pencil point inside the clip on the dot, and flick the clip so it spins around the pencil.

The split pin (brad) spinner (10 minutes)

1. Draw or print your wheel on card and cut it out.
2. Make a small hole in the centre so the brad goes through easily.
3. Push the brad through, fold its legs back loosely, and leave a little space under the head.
4. Slip a paperclip over the brad head to act as the pointer. Flick it to spin.

Living Montessori Now suggests leaving about half an inch of slack on the brad so the clip spins freely.

The spinning paper plate (20 minutes)

For a wheel that spins itself, The Pinterested Parent pushes a wooden skewer through the centre of a paper plate, holds the plate between two small foam circles glued around the skewer, and trims the sharp tip. Hold the skewer and spin the plate; a fixed paper arrow taped to a cup or box can act as the pointer.

How to divide a circle into equal sections

Equal sections are what make a paper wheel fair. Divide 360 by the number of sections and use a protractor:

Sections	Degrees each	Tip
2	180°	One line through the centre
3	120°
4	90°	Fold in half twice
5	72°
6	60°
8	45°	Fold in half three times
10	36°
12	30°	Like a clock face

Folding works well for 2, 4, 8 and 16 sections. For other numbers, use a protractor from the centre point.

How to make a paper wheel as fair as possible

• Keep every section the same size, and draw the lines from the exact centre.
• Flick from the same starting point each time, hard enough for at least one full turn.
• Agree before you start what happens if the pointer stops on a line: spin again.
• Check the pointer spins freely; a tight brad or a bent clip favours some sections.

Even then, a paper spinner is never perfectly fair: friction, the table surface and how you flick all make a difference. For prize draws or anything people might dispute, use the online wheel, which draws the result with a secure random number generator. Read how we keep the wheel fair.

What to put on your wheel

• Names for turns, teams and prize draws
• Numbers for board games, maths practice and raffles
• Questions or prompts for icebreakers, writing and drawing
• Food, films or activities for everyday decisions
• Chores or jobs for families and classrooms

Need a list to start with? See 100 spin the wheel ideas.

Presenting? See how to use a spin the wheel in PowerPoint, Google Slides and Canva, including which methods are truly random.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• NRICH: Do You Measure Up? (paperclip spinner method)
• Living Montessori Now: How to make a paperclip game spinner that spins easily
• The Pinterested Parent: Paper plate spinning wheel