How to run a random team break that buyers can verify
To run a random team break buyers can trust, lock the team list and the buyer list before you randomize, let the people watching add a seed you couldn't have known, then publish a link that lets anyone recompute the result.
The short version
- Enter your teams (one per line) and your buyers with their spots. The number of spots has to equal the number of teams.
- Seal the break. This produces a long code, the commitment, that you can post before you start.
- Ask chat for a seed: the next message, a number someone calls out, anything you could not have predicted.
- Press Randomize. Teams are matched to spots using the lists, the secret seed and the viewer seed.
- Reveal the secret seed and share the verify link. Anyone can recompute the result in their own browser.
Why a spin on screen is not enough
Most random team breaks use an online randomizer, shown on stream or in a screen recording. That is a reasonable way to pick, but afterward a buyer cannot tell three things from the video alone:
- whether the team and buyer lists were the same ones sold,
- whether it was run once or several times before the one shown,
- whether the person running it could have steered the outcome.
A commit-then-reveal randomizer closes those gaps. The lists and a secret seed are locked into the commitment first. The viewers' seed is added after. Once the secret seed is revealed, the whole shuffle can be checked by anyone. If one name or one team had changed, the check would fail.
Step by step in BreakSeal
The free app at breakseal.com runs entirely in your browser. It needs no account and sends nothing to a server.
- Choose what you are randomizing (Teams to buyers, Pick order or Razz), paste your team list, and paste your buyers. Write a buyer as
name 2if they bought two spots. - If the spots and teams do not match, the page tells you how many are missing or extra. You can give leftover spots to a House name.
- Press Seal break. Copy the commitment and post it in your listing or chat before the break starts.
- Ask the viewers for a seed and type it in. Press Randomize.
- Step through the reveal on screen, then press Copy link and post it where buyers will see it.
Tips that make buyers trust you
- Post the commitment before the break starts, not after.
- Take the viewer seed from chat after you have sealed, never before.
- Run it once. If you must re-roll, say so; BreakSeal numbers every re-roll and the first run stays the official result.
- Leave the verify link up. Buyers who were not watching live can check it later.
What this proves: the assignment followed from the locked lists and the seeds. It does not prove what was in the box or that cards were shipped. That part still depends on you.