A weight is a number of chances. Weight 3 means that entry sits in the draw three times over, so on a list of Jamie (1), Alex (3) and Sam (1), Alex wins about sixty per cent of the time — three of the five total chances.
Adding weights by hand
In the names box, put a star and the number after the name:
- Jamie
- Alex *3
- Sam
A name with no star keeps one chance, and a star with no number after it is just part of the name, so “Alex * the great” stays intact.
Adding weights from a spreadsheet
During import, choose a weight column — a bonus entries column, a ticket quantity, a multiplier. Blank, zero, negative and unreadable values all become one chance. Dropping somebody from a draw because a cell was empty is not a decision to make silently.
People and chances
When weights are on, the count under the wheel shows both: “482 entries · 637 total chances”. The first is how many people are in the draw. The second is how many chances exist between them.
Why the wheel does not repeat a name
A name with twenty chances would take twenty slices and make the wheel unreadable. Spinnza shows the entry once and applies the weight to the draw, which is exact either way.