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raffle/random choice software

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mouser:
Aryq's suggestion of random.org is a good one if you are simply trying to choose m winners from a group of n entrants.

There are a few specialized cases where you may need to look deeper:

1. If you want to select winners not purely randomly, but with some weighted probabilities -- for example if you wanted the chance that an entrant to win to be based on how many years they have been in operation, etc. [doesn't sound like you need this].
2. If you needed to be able to *prove* to some third party rigorously that you only ran the random selection once and these are the independently verified results. [doesn't sound like you need this].
3. If you were going to be running multiple giveaways over time and wanted to make it less likely that people would win twice in a row, etc. [doesn't sound like you need this].

ayryq:
1. If you want to select winners not purely randomly, but with some weighted probabilities -- for example if you wanted the chance that an entrant to win to be based on how many years they have been in operation, etc. [doesn't sound like you need this].
-mouser (June 09, 2015, 08:32 AM)
--- End quote ---

You could simulate this by just assigning (some) entrants multiple entry numbers.

Joe Hone:
Thanks for the suggestions, if random.org doesn't seem right I'll ask for a Coding Snack.

The awards are going to be given for a few years, and winning disqualifies the recipient from winning again for 36 months. I guess the foundation will track entrants to prevent multiple wins by an applicant during the disqualification period. 

ayryq:
One more thing about random.org:

They have a paid winner-picking service: "The Draw Service offers a high level of transparency to your entrants and also protects you against accusations of tampering by storing a record of the results on RANDOM.ORG."

For fewer than 500 entries (and as many winners as you like) the cost is $4.95. Looks like you can upload a list of entrants (rather than just numbers) as well.

https://www.random.org/faq/#S5

mouser:
nice -- so that takes care of my point #2 above.

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