Why we called it DrawSeal

There are dozens of tools for picking a winner. They all do the same thing: they display a name. None answers the only question your audience actually has — how do I know that name wasn’t chosen before the wheel started spinning?

The problem is not randomness, it is proof

Drawing a random number is trivial: any programming language does it in one line. What is hard is proving afterwards that you did not re-run it until the right name came up. A wheel spinning in a story proves nothing: it can be refilmed as many times as you like, and nobody sees the earlier takes.

“It’s always the same people who win” is not bad faith. It states something true: no verification was possible. We did not build a tool that asks to be taken at its word. We built the one that makes the question checkable.

Before every draw we seal our secret number: its value stays hidden, but what we publish stops us from changing it. The draw then rests on public randomness, produced at a fixed time by a third party we do not control. Once the winner is out, we reveal our number — and anyone can then verify the draw for themselves: redo the maths, and land on the same name.

And the maths is not a black box. The code that picks the winner is published under an open licence, on GitHub and on npm. It is not a courtesy copy: it is the engine, the only one, the one the service runs. So you do not have to take our word on the method either — you can read it.

Draw, and Seal

“Draw” is the draw. “Seal” is the seal — not the metaphor, the object: wax pressed once onto a fold and never touched again. Its virtue is not that it prevents opening. It is that it makes opening visible.

That is exactly what a commitment published before a draw does: once made, it cannot be taken back, and altering it would show. It must come first, though — at least 24 hours separate the publication of the commitment from the draw itself. That is not a setting we relax for a client in a hurry: it is a constraint of the product.

And the logo

A solid disc: the impression, pressed into wax. An open ring partly covering it: the draw, which you can look through. And two points below, the ribbons a seal holds.

What is absent matters as much: no four-leaf clover, no dice, no multicoloured wheel. Those are symbols of luck — and everyone promises luck. We do not sell luck to an organiser: we sell them the means to prove they did not touch it.

What we refuse to do

• Read your Instagram comments for you. The technical access it offers is not stable, and a tool built on it stops working one morning without warning. We prefer a method that holds.
• Measure you. No Google Analytics, no advertising pixel, no third-party tracker on this site. That is also why there is no cookie banner: we have nothing to make you accept.
• Take money from an entrant. Entry is free, with no purchase necessary, and will stay that way. The only money in the service is organisers’ subscriptions.
• Undo a commitment. Once the seal is published, neither you nor we can change it. A “cancel” button there would empty the product of its purpose.

Who publishes the service

DrawSeal is published by SRL BUSINESS SPACE, a company incorporated under Belgian law with its registered office at Avenue Louise 65/11, 1050 Brussels. Publication director: Daniel Coltof. The service and the data it processes are hosted within the European Union, with no transfer outside the European Economic Area.

Company number, VAT number and available remedies are on the legal notice; the detail of what we process is in our data protection policy.

Where to start

The shortest way to judge for yourself: verify an existing draw. No account is needed and nothing is asked of you. To understand first where the randomness comes from, the page on drand explains it.

Read next

• Proof of a draw — screenshot, live stream, notary: what each really demonstrates
• Prize wheel alternative — why a wheel shows well and proves nothing
• Running a giveaway — the full path, from prizes to handing over the prize

Frequently asked questions