How we draw winners.

At the exact draw time listed on each competition page, our system does four things in strict order: (1) freeze every valid entry for that competition into a sorted list of ticket numbers; (2) generate a 64-bit random seed using the operating system’s cryptographically secure random source (Python’s secrets.randbits); (3) use that seed to deterministically pick one ticket via random.Random(seed).choice(sorted(eligible_ticket_numbers)); (4) permanently record the seed, the algorithm, the full eligible ticket list, and the winning ticket to an immutable draw record.

That record is what we publish on the past-draws log. Anyone with that seed and eligible list can re-run the maths locally and confirm the same winning ticket falls out. See the “Verify it yourself” section below for the exact snippet.

Honest caveat: the seed is generated at draw time, not committed in advance. This means the audit trail is fully reproducible after the fact — but it doesn’t, on its own, prove we couldn’t have re-run the RNG until we got a preferred result. That’s exactly why the second check below matters.

For every draw, a nominated third-party witness — someone with no financial interest in The Padel Draw, and not an employee or contractor — is on the video call while the draw is executed live in the admin dashboard. They see the button pressed, the seed generated, and the winning ticket appear, in one continuous shot. Their name and role are recorded on the draw record at that moment and appear on the public past-draws log alongside the seed and eligible ticket list. The recording of that call is retained for a minimum of six months.

If we ever run a draw without a witness present (for example, due to a scheduling conflict), that draw is postponed — not run behind closed doors. There is no scenario in which a draw happens with only us in the room.

The seeded RNG lets you verify the maths without needing to trust us or the witness. The witness confirms in real time that we ran the process once, not repeatedly until we liked the answer. Neither mechanism on its own is complete; together they give you both a mathematical proof and a live procedural check on every single draw.

Every entry sits in one pool. A paid ticket and a free postal entry each get one entry number and one draw slot. The RNG cannot distinguish between them — they are identical at the point of selection. This is a legal requirement under UK prize-competition law, and it is the mechanic that makes the free entry route meaningful.

For every draw we publish the seed, the algorithm, and the full sorted list of eligible ticket numbers. Paste them into any Python 3 interpreter and you’ll get the same winning ticket we did. The five-line script we use is public and looks like this:

import random

seed = <copied from past-draws log>
eligible = <sorted list of ticket numbers>
winner = random.Random(seed).choice(sorted(eligible))
print(winner)

On our past-draws page every completed draw has a “Verify” link that opens a dedicated view with the exact values pre-filled. If the number you compute doesn’t match the published winning ticket, please tell us at hello@thepadeldraw.co.uk—that would be a fault we’d treat as urgent.

Within a working day of every draw, the following goes on this website:

• Competition name and slug
• Date and time the draw was run
• Total tickets sold and total valid entries in the pool
• The full seed (64-bit integer)
• The algorithm string
• The sorted list of eligible ticket numbers
• Independent witness name and role
• Winning ticket number

The live log is on our past-draws page. Nothing gets edited or removed from it after publication.