How Ticket Clash is Fair

Step-by-step: how a raffle resolves

1. 01

   Registration closes

   When the countdown hits zero, registration is locked. No new tickets can enter. The final list of ticket IDs is frozen.

2. 02

   Seed is generated

   A seed is derived from the current Unix timestamp at the moment of execution. This value is immediately written to the database — it cannot be changed after the fact.

3. 03

   Tickets are shuffled

   The full list of ticket IDs is shuffled using Fisher-Yates with the seeded RNG. This determines the bracket order.

4. 04

   Bracket rounds run

   Shuffled tickets are paired up. Each pair has a winner selected by the RNG. Unpaired tickets (odd counts) get a free bye to the next round. This repeats until one ticket remains.

5. 05

   Results are stored

   Every round, every match, and every outcome is stored immutably in the database. The winner, 2nd and 3rd place are recorded.

The RNG algorithm

We use Mulberry32, a well-known, fast, and statistically high-quality 32-bit seeded PRNG. Given the same seed, it always produces the exact same sequence of numbers — making every shuffle and match outcome fully reproducible.

function seedRng(seed: number) {
  let s = seed;
  return () => {
    s |= 0;
    s = (s + 0x6d2b79f5) | 0;
    let t = Math.imul(s ^ (s >>> 15), 1 | s);
    t = (t + Math.imul(t ^ (t >>> 7), 61 | t)) ^ t;
    return ((t ^ (t >>> 14)) >>> 0) / 4294967296;
  };
}

The Fisher-Yates shuffle ensures every permutation of tickets is equally likely:

function shuffle(arr, rng) {
  const a = [...arr];
  for (let i = a.length - 1; i > 0; i--) {
    const j = Math.floor(rng() * (i + 1));
    [a[i], a[j]] = [a[j], a[i]];
  }
  return a;
}

Verify any result yourself

Every finished raffle exposes its seed in the results page. You can copy the seed and the list of ticket IDs, then run the same Mulberry32 + Fisher-Yates shuffle locally to confirm the bracket matches what we recorded. No trust required.

What we cannot do