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Secret Santa picker: a fair, no-repeat way to assign gift partners on your iPhone

Random has no dedicated Secret Santa button, but its Bingo drum can draw a random order for your group with every person coming out exactly once. Number your participants, draw that order with Bingo, then have each person give a gift to the next name in the order, with the last person giving to the first.

3 min read · Updated 2026-09-15

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Why a plain name picker is not enough

Using the ordinary name picker for this, drawing a receiver for each giver one by one, can match someone to themselves. An ordinary picker causes exactly that problem, plus the opposite one: the same person can be picked twice while another gets nobody. A fair Secret Santa needs every person to show up exactly once as a receiver, nobody matched to themselves.

Random's Bingo drum already takes care of the first part: once a ball is drawn, it cannot come out again. Using it to build a random order, instead of drawing receivers one by one, also solves the self-match problem.

How to draw Secret Santa with the Bingo drum

  1. On paper or in Notes, write your participants' names next to the numbers 1, 2, 3 and so on, in any order.
  2. Open Random, go to Home and tap Bingo.
  3. Type the number of participants next to Max numbers: (or tap 75/90 only if that happens to match; otherwise type your own count), for example 6.
  4. Tap Generate once for every participant. Each tap removes one ball from the drum, so nobody's number comes out twice.
  5. Read the drawn order from the board of called balls, left to right, and write down the matching names using your numbered list.

The order you now have is the whole gift chain: the first name gives to the second, the second gives to the third, and so on, with the last name giving back to the first. Nobody ever gives to themselves, because each name's gift-receiver is always the next different name in the chain.

A worked example with 6 people

Say a Bingo draw with Max numbers: 6 calls the balls in this order: 4, 1, 6, 2, 5, 3. Matched against a numbered list (1 Alex, 2 Bea, 3 Cleo, 4 Dee, 5 Emi, 6 Fay), the gift chain reads Dee, Alex, Fay, Bea, Emi, Cleo.

Gift chain from the drawn order 4, 1, 6, 2, 5, 3
GiverGives a gift to
DeeAlex
AlexFay
FayBea
BeaEmi
EmiCleo
CleoDee

With 6 people, this particular order was just one of 720 equally likely orders the drum could have drawn (0.139% chance each), and any one person ends up buying for any one particular other person 1 time in 5, a 20% chance, the same for everyone in the group.

What this method cannot do for you

The app has no Secret Santa mode, no couple or family exclusions, no wish lists, and no way to message each person their match: it only draws the order. If two people who should not be paired end up next to each other in the chain (such as a couple), the fairest fix is to Restart and draw the whole order again, not to swap names by hand, since a hand swap can put someone second in line to themselves.

The free version shows a banner at the top of the Bingo screen and, from time to time, a full-screen ad when you open Bingo from the Home list; Remove Ads removes both. Either way, the draw itself has no limit and works with no internet connection and no account.

Questions and answers

Is there a dedicated Secret Santa mode?
No. Random has no feature named for Secret Santa; this guide uses the Bingo drum's no-repeat draw to build a fair gift order instead.
Can it exclude couples or family members from matching each other?
No. If an unwanted pair ends up next to each other in the drawn order, redraw the whole order with Bingo rather than swapping two names by hand.
Can it email or text everyone their match?
No. The app has no account, no email and no sharing feature. You tell each person their match yourself, privately, in person or through a messaging app of your own.
Does it support wish lists?
No. Random only draws the gift order; wish lists need a separate note, message or app.
Do I need the internet to run the draw?
No. Bingo draws on the device itself. The only things that need a connection are the ads in the free version and App Store purchases.

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