Random Number Generator

Draw numbers from any range, with or without repeats, sorted ascending, descending or left in draw order, separated by commas, spaces or newlines. Presets cover a 6-from-45 lottery line, a 5-from-69 Powerball pick and three dice.

The generator is worth a paragraph because the easy way to build one is subtly wrong. Taking a random 32-bit value and reducing it modulo the range biases the result, because 2³² is not a multiple of most ranges: for a range of 45, 2³² leaves a remainder of 31, so 31 of the 45 outcomes are reachable by one more value than the rest. This tool instead rejects and redraws — it discards any value at or above the largest multiple of the range that fits in 32 bits, which removes the bias entirely. The cost is nothing you will notice: for a range of 45, the fraction of draws thrown away is 0.0000007%.

Unique mode fills a set by drawing until it has enough distinct values, which is the right approach when you want a few numbers from a wide range and a poor one when you want nearly all of them. Six distinct numbers from 1–45 takes about 6.4 draws on average; all 45 of them would take about 198, because the last few values are found only by repeatedly hitting the ones already taken. Asking for more numbers than the range holds is refused rather than looped forever.

One thing no generator can give you is a better lottery ticket. Every combination is equally likely, so avoiding last week's numbers or spreading picks across the grid changes nothing about your chance of winning — it changes only how many people you would share a prize with, since human-chosen lines cluster on birthdays and patterns. Unpredictable is what the cryptographic source here buys you, and that is worth having when the draw decides something real.