True Random Number Service

Testimonials - Lotteries and Draws

RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page contains testimonials from users of the service.

Random Ballet Ordering

From: Andrew A, New York, USA
Date: 10 January 2008
I help out with a internet poetry workshop and community called Neopoet. We elect members every three months to a board which governs the site. I discovered Random.org while stranded in an airport lounge on the eve of our first election. I was waiting for my delayed flight while I realized I'd forgotten to randomize the ballot order. I pulled out my Blackberry and started searching for a way to generate random numbers. I quickly found your Random Sequence Generator. I wrote down the candidates on a slip of paper, then the assigned sequences from your site. I was able to update the ballot just as the election was about to begin, and just a moment before the final boarding call was announced.

Codes for Instant Win Game

From: Stephanie Dorenbosch from UCG Marketing
Date: 10 August 2007
I wanted to both thank you for your random number generator and apologize for hogging the numbers today (I used up my quota and then went to my coworker's computer to get more numbers). I had to generate 50,000 random numbers for a project at work with only a couple hours' notice – we’re producing cards for a client as part of an instant win game, and each one needs a unique code – and your generator saved the day. Plus, my coworkers already think I have mystical intellectual powers, and when I can come up with a solution like this in 15 minutes it boggles their minds. By the way, I love the user interface and the design of your site – it's simple and easy to use for non-mathematicians, and it has a nice clean, elegant feel to it. Thanks again!

Student Team Presentation Selection

From: Lt Col Chuck Stribula who is a Project Management Professional and Professor at DAU
Date: 7 May 2007
As part of the classes I teach, I task my students with preparing a lot of presentations. To save time & reduce boredom, I occasionally have only a portion of the student teams give their presentations. I use your Sequence Generator to pick who presents (& in what order), after they're ready to present (to keep them focused & accountable). Great website; please keep up the good work!

Woodblock Print Anniversary Contest

From: David Bull
Date: 30 April 2007
Mr. Haahr, I thought I would drop you a line to say 'thank you' for your random.org pages. I am currently running a contest to celebrate the 10th anniversary of my website, and need an honest way to select winners from among the entrants. This evening I will have to make the first selection of winners and your tools will provide an excellent way of doing this ... thank you!

NYC Stand-Up Comedy

From: John Morrison who runs the Morrison Motel comedy show in New York City
Date: 2 April 2007
I produce 4 weekly booked open mics for stand-up comics in Manhattan. A typical show is only able to put up 24 comics in the two hour length of the show, and usually over 50 comics will reply to each week's invite to perform. How best to determine who gets on and who gets mad? You and your site have saved my bacon repeatedly. Thank you!

Drawings for Public Safety Professionals

From: Michael Wallach from 911Lifeline.org
Date: 7 March 2007
I am the founder and administrator of 911Lifeline.org, We are a forum, support, and resource center for public safety professionals who work as telecommunicators at 9-1-1 emergency dispatch centers. We provide our services via our Yahoo group, and our web site. We recently started drawings to recognize and reward our members. In particular, we are holding our first drawing to celebrate National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. NPSTW is an annual event that takes place during the first full week in April. It was officially created by a proclamation signed in 1994 by former U.S. president Bill Clinton. If you are interested, you can read the proclamation at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=49952 Our members enter the drawings via email. At first, it was not clear how to fairly pick the winners, but then I became aware of Random.org. Each email is assigned a sequential number as it is received. Your random sequence generator is then used to randomize the entries. The first N numbers in the sequence, typically three, determine the winners. Thank you for your fine resource, and public service. Sincerely, Michael Wallach

Successful Lottery Pick

From: Pat Cassady in Arlington, Virginia, USA
Date: 22 July 2006
I found your rng under "google - I feel luck" search and used the integer generator for pick 3 sets of lottery numbers and won on one of them. What the heck, it worked! Thanks for the generator, it's fun.

Lotto Numbers for Online Game

From: Cody Jones
Date: 13 September 2004
Just thought I would let you know that I use random.org to generate Lotto numbers for my Clan (Drake Knights) on Mech Crusaders. It's perfect for a small Lotto situation, great site, thanks.

Mr. Wizard Magic Card Trick Contest

From: Fred Glendening
Date: 1 September 2004
Mr. Wizard is a monthly contest based on a pretty neat on-line card trick. A $50 cash prize is awarded each month to both the winner and person who referred the winner to our site. The winner is chosen by first sequentially numbering each entry as it arrives then using the Web interface at random.org to select one of the numbers.

Selecting High Schools for Quiz Show

From: Tom Housley who is a Producer and Director for WHIO TV
Date: 17 August 2004
I produce a high school quiz show in Dayton Ohio (USA). Each year we can only choose 36 high schools, & we typically get about 70 schools who wish to play. I assign a number to each school, then use random.org to generate the field of teams that will compete. It's a completely fair way to choose the schools.

Raffles for Saab Owners

From: Scott Paterson
Date: 8 August 2004
Donation: Mads's Amazon Wishlist
I use the random number generator to pick winners in the various raffles I hold on The Saab Network web site. It's a group of Saab owners (250,000 visitors each month) that originally began on the Internet as a mailing list in 1988!

Australian Wine Sweepstakes

From: Thomas Andersen from the Australian Trade Commission
Date: 2 July 2004
Donation: Six bottles of very nice Australian wine :-)
Dear Mads, This is an expression of thanks for making your random number generator available. We use it to randomly draw winners in sweepstakes to promote Australian wine in Denmark! These sweepstakes will usually attract thousands of participants and we have found the generator, in addition to being extremely simple and quick to use, is a good reference if participants wish to know the method with which we draw winners.

USS Constitution July 4th Lottery

From: LT William Marks, Executive Officer of the USS CONSTITUTION
Date: 4 May 2004
USS CONSTITUTION, known better as "Old Ironsides". The oldest commissioned warship afloat in the entire world. We use your program to choose winners for our July 4th lottery. We get thousands of entries from across the world each year and only choose 150 winners. Winners receive an invitation to be onboard the ship during our Turnaround Cruise in Boston Harbor. Thank you for a great program.

Travel Competition

From: Carolyn Childs who is Managing Director for the Travel Research Centre
Date: 30 April 2004
We used it to generate the winner of 105,000 frequent flyer miles in a draw for an on-line survey conducted for a major international airline. That will get someone from Europe to Asia in Economy or Business Class to the Middle East/North Africa. Someone is pretty happy now! We normally do it internally on our own computer generator but the person who does that is on compassionate leave. So thanks for the use of your random.org. I'll make sure I credit you to our client..... Best regards from sunny Sydney

Raffle for Literacy Support Network

From: Teresa Maldonado from the Secondary Literacy Support Network (SLSN) in WestEd, Sacramento in California
Date: 4 March 2004
Greeting Mads, I'd like to thank you for having shared your random sequencer with the world and with me today! I am part of a statewide committee that is organizing the Secondary Literacy Summit IV, California's only conference for teachers and school principals dealing with literacy issues for middle schools and high schools. Finding your random sequencer was great today, and it will come in handy to create a raffle for our 410 participants. Visiting your website, I really enjoyed reading about your Smart Couch and wish you and your team luck in finding needed uses for this very unique concept.

Allocation of High School Positions

From: Kelly Kennedy, who is the guidance technician at Chesterfield Community High School
Date: 5 December 2003
We are a charter high school in Chesterfield, Virginia, USA. I use random.org to assign numbers to student applications. We always have more applicants than positions available, so the most fair way to determine who gets offered a position at our school is using random.org to generate random sequences for a lottery. Thank you for making this process so easy for me; no one can question the fairness of your truly random numbers.

Direct Marketing Sweepstakes

From: Sarah Bender from Make It Direct in Chicago, USA
Date: 5 December 2003
Hello and thank you. You have provided an easy, unbiased and scientific format for me to pick sweepstakes winners. We are a full service direct marketing and promotions company in Chicago and often have the need to handle a sweepstake pick. We've used your site to pick sweepstakes winners of airline travel, baseball games, pool tables, and various other prizes. So for all those lucky winners - you really are randomly selected! Thanks again.

Library Door Prizes

From: Lyn Ashby
Date: 30 October 2003
I am a medical librarian and yesterday I hosted an open house at the library to celebrate all the changes we have made recently. As part of our celebration (and for incentive to drop in) I offered door prizes. A friend in our tech dept helped me set up and configure an extra time clock so that all visitors had to do to register was swipe their employee badge. After downloading this to excel, I used your generator to generate 3 numbers to determine winners of our door prizes. Easy peasie, one two three-sie!

Yarn Contest

From: Nancy Milstone
Date: 16 October 2003
I just came upon your website while trying to generate random numbers on a spreadsheet. I hadn't installed the feature and I was too lazy to look for the CD! My purpose is rather lame, I suppose, but I'm in a monthly contest to win yarn from PT Yarn and I have to choose 15 of 31 yarn names for a lottery every month. Your number generator made it quick and simple.

Free Phone Card Contest

From: Kevin Waite, President of InstaPhoneCard
Date: 19 September 2003
Donation: Mads's Amazon Wishlist
Just wanted to send you a thank you for the random number website. [...] Random.org was the perfect solution for us. We use your site to randomly select monthly winners for our free AT&T prepaid phone card contest.

Contest for the Elderly

From: Jeff Pepper from Touchtown, Inc.
Date: 1 June 2003
Dr. Haahr, just a quick thank-you for your random.org website. I run a weekly contest for elderly residents of retirement homes in the US, and I have to select a prize winner from all the people who submit correct answers. So every week I assign sequential numbers to all the correct entries, and use your website to select the winner! Just thought you'd like to know your website is a valuable resource for us. Thanks again.

Draw for Free Cinema Tickets

From: Carl Warrent
Date: 16 September 2002
I run a local nightlife site called Norwich Tonight. We give away free cinema tickets every month and use Random.org to choose the winners.

Channel 4 Web Site Competitions

From: Steve Berry, Entertainment Producer with Channel Four Television
Date: 22 August 2002
Channel 4 Interactive uses random.org to generate winners of the regular competitions we run on the site. As there can be anything up to 15,000 entries, it helps to have something genuinely random, so we don't get accused of bias.

Magnetic Business Card Draw

From: Nathan Cain from Web Magnets
Date: 7 June 2002
I am using random.org to choose a winner from the subscribers to my newsletter. Every month I choose a winner of 500 FREE Magnetic Business Cards. Thank you.

Youth Ministry Prizes

From: Dave Spada from Bridgewater Catholic Youth Ministry
Date: 5 March 2002
Thank you for your website. We run a youth ministry program that has about 110 teens involved. During the month of March we decided to do a calendar, with prizes for each day, as a fund raiser. We sold 600 calendars. Instead of the traditional pulling numbers from a hat we decided to use your website to draw the daily winners. It is working out wonderfully. In a letter that we sent out with each calendar we mentioned your website and included a link. Thanks again for providing this service and may God Bless You.

Monthly Contests

From: Dorette from the online savings guide Abusaki's Corner
Date: 24 September 2001
We run monthly contests on our site and I must say Random.org has been very helpful. We use it to choose our winners and it has been fair and just fine.

Trivia and Other Contests

From: Chad Gilley from Around Town
Date: 19 August 2000
I am local content editor for our local on-line service. We use Random.org to select a winner for our weekly trivia contest. We give full credit to Random.org on the page. We've also used it to select winners of other contests for the web site.