Ladder Game
The Korean ladder game (ghost leg): enter participants and outcomes, and the ladder pairs each person with one result at random — every player gets exactly one prize, every prize goes to exactly one player. The classic way to assign who buys coffee.
How to use
- Enter the participants.
- Enter the outcomes — one per participant, duds included if you like.
- Run the ladder and trace the paths to the pairings.
- Lock the outcome list before running; editing it afterwards is how arguments start.
When you actually need this
- Deciding who pays for coffee or lunch.
- Assigning chores, shifts or cleanup duty without accusations of favoritism.
- Distributing prizes or gag gifts at a gathering.
- Pairing people with presentation slots or seats.
Why the ladder never double-books
The ladder's rungs each swap two adjacent columns, and a path that enters at the top exits at exactly one bottom slot — mathematically the ladder composes swaps into a permutation, which is why two people can never land on the same outcome no matter how tangled it looks. That guarantee is the game's charm over independent random draws. A physical ladder drawn with few rungs can be predictable (paths drift less than people assume); a digital one shuffles properly, so every assignment is equally likely — fair in the way the hand-drawn version only pretends to be.
Related tools
FAQ
Is the result from Ladder Game genuinely random?
It uses the browser's built-in random number generator, which is uniform and unpredictable for everyday purposes such as picking a name, settling a decision or running a giveaway. It is not a cryptographic source and should not be used to generate keys or secrets.
Can the outcome be rigged or predicted?
No. Each draw is generated fresh in your browser at the moment you press the button, with no server involved and no stored sequence. Nobody, including us, can see or influence the result.
Can I use Ladder Game to pick winners for a giveaway?
Yes, and it is a common use. For transparency, record your screen while you draw or take a screenshot of the result so participants can see the outcome was not edited afterwards.