Last updated 24 August 2026
How teams stay even
The full list is shuffled once, then dealt out in rotation — first person to team one, second to team two, and so on, wrapping back around. That keeps every team's size within one person of every other team, even when the total number of names doesn't divide evenly by the number of teams.
Common questions
How are teams made even?
The full list is shuffled first, then dealt out one at a time in rotation — person 1 to team 1, person 2 to team 2, and so on, wrapping back to team 1. That keeps every team within one person of every other team, even when the total doesn't divide evenly.
Can the same name win twice when picking winners?
No — winners are drawn from the shuffled list without replacement, so each name can only be picked once no matter how many winners you ask for (up to the size of the list).
Is the shuffle actually fair?
It uses a Fisher-Yates shuffle, the standard unbiased method where every possible ordering of the list is equally likely — not a naive approach that can favor certain positions.