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How to pick a giveaway winner fairly
Participants’ main question after the draw is “was there really a giveaway?”. Fake giveaways and “you’ve won” account hijacking are common, so trust in the organizer rests on one thing: whether you can check that the winner was picked at random and not swapped. We go from the simplest methods to the most reliable.
Screen recording with a randomizer
The most common method: the organizer starts a screen recording, pastes the list of participants into a random number generator and shows the result. It’s better than nothing, but proves little. The recording doesn’t show whether the list was the same before recording or how many times the generator was run before the result suited the organizer.
External draw service
An independent service takes the list of participants, runs the draw itself and keeps a record of it that anyone can open. RANDOM.ORG’s Third-Party Draw works this way, for example: the record stays verifiable for years. The downsides — the list has to be uploaded by hand, and payment is in dollars via PayPal, which is usually unavailable from Russia.
How to lock the participant list
A draw is fair only if the list can’t be edited after the winners are known. Locking it is simple: when entries close, export the list of numbers without names, publish it or its fingerprint, and only then draw. If the rules screen some participants out — for example, those who unsubscribed — do it before locking the list and explain the reason in the results.
Hash in advance: a pick that can be repeated
The most reliable scheme requires trusting neither the organizer nor a video:
- Before the start the organizer picks a secret number and publishes its hash — a “fingerprint” that doesn’t reveal the number. The number can’t be swapped later: a different number has a different fingerprint.
- When entries close, the list of participants is fixed and published together with its own fingerprint.
- At the draw the winners are computed from the secret number and the list by a published rule, and the number itself is revealed.
Now anyone can check three things: that the revealed number gives the fingerprint published in advance, that the list didn’t change, and that exactly these winners follow from the number and the list. The organizer can’t “re-roll” the result: the number was picked before the list was known.
An example with small numbers
How winners come out of the secret number and the list — an example. A giveaway has five participants numbered 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8. No. 2 has one extra chance for invited friends and No. 8 has two, so their “weights” are 2 and 3; the rest have 1. The total weight is 8.
- A large number is computed from the secret number, the list’s fingerprint and the place number. Take the remainder of dividing it by the total weight — say, 2.
- Go down the list adding up the weights: No. 1 — 1, No. 2 — 1 + 2 = 3. No. 2 is the first whose sum exceeds 2 — they take first place.
- No. 2 drops out, and the total weight is now 6. For second place the remainder came out as 0 — No. 1’s weight already exceeds it, so second place goes to No. 1.
- Third place (No. 8) and the reserve (No. 5) are picked the same way.
Every step in this chain is unambiguous: knowing the secret number and the list, anyone gets the same winners in the same order. They can be swapped only by swapping the number or the list — and their fingerprints are published in advance.
A reserve instead of a redraw
A winner may not respond, may decline the prize or may turn out to be unsubscribed. The fair way out is a reserve picked in the same draw: after the winners, a few more numbers are picked in order the same way. When a place frees up, the first reserve gets it, and this is visible in the results, for example: “2nd place: No. 157 didn’t respond within 48 hours → No. 32”.
A redraw “from scratch” is worse: the organizer gets a second chance at the result they want, and participants have every reason to doubt it.
If the winner is silent
- A response deadline in the rules, usually one to three days, counted from the message to the winner.
- A reminder before the deadline — people miss messages.
- Write on behalf of the organizer — from the bot or the official account the giveaway ran through.
- Don’t ask for a money transfer — for delivery or a “prize tax”. If the tax can’t be withheld, the winner pays it themselves based on the tax office’s notice. Transfers to the organizer are a scammers’ trick.
- Record the change of place in the results so others can see why a reserve participant got the prize.
Should you publish the winner’s name
The winner’s name in the results is dissemination of personal data. Under Art. 10.1 of the Personal Data Law this requires separate consent, separate from other consents, and silence doesn’t count as consent. The person chooses what can be published.
A practical option: the participant number in the results, and the first name with the initial of the last name only for those who consented. It’s also better not to publish a messenger nickname without consent: it can be partially masked.
What else affects trust
- Rules before the start — dates, conditions, prizes, the pick method. They can’t be changed during the giveaway.
- Results on the promised day and in the open — in the same channel as the post.
- Contact with the winner on behalf of the organizer, not a “manager” from an unknown account: this way participants don’t mistake you for scammers.
- The winner’s name — with their consent. Publishing a name is distribution of personal data; without separate consent, publish the participant number.
- Those who unsubscribed before the draw don’t get a prize — this belongs in the rules, and the subscription is worth re-checking before the pick.
How it works in CHBT
Giveaways in CHBT work on the hash-in-advance scheme. At the start the bot picks a secret number and publishes its fingerprint on the giveaway page on chbt.io. At the draw it re-checks subscriptions, fixes the list of numbers and picks the winners and the reserve; extra chances for invited friends count as the weight of a number. After the draw the page shows the list, the fingerprints, the secret number, a step-by-step record and a “Check in browser” button that repeats the calculation. The organizer doesn’t see the secret number before the draw and can’t exclude a participant once the list is fixed. More on the Telegram giveaway bot page.
FAQ
Can I use an ordinary random number generator? Yes, if you lock and publish the numbered participant list in advance and show exactly how the number was obtained. Without that, a generator doesn’t prove the list wasn’t changed.
What is a hash in simple terms? It’s a fixed-length fingerprint of data. You can’t recover the original number from the fingerprint, but any change to the number gives a completely different fingerprint — so the number can’t be quietly swapped after the fingerprint is published.
How can I check the results without a programmer? In CHBT — with the “Check in browser” button on the results page: the calculation is repeated right on the participant’s device. You can also do it by hand: the page has the participant list, the fingerprints and the record of every step.
What if a participant unsubscribed before the results? They drop out: subscriptions are checked again before the draw, and unsubscribed people don’t make it into the list.
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