What Is a Ladder Game?
A ladder game (Amidakuji) is a traditional lottery method: follow a ladder-shaped diagram made of vertical lines connected by randomly placed horizontal rungs, and each starting number gets randomly matched to an ending result. Originating in Japan and popular across Korea too, it's a everyday tool for "fair random picking": deciding who pays, who's on cleanup duty, or the order of presentations.
How It Works
- Vertical lines: One per player, each numbered at the top.
- Rungs: Random horizontal rungs connect adjacent vertical lines at various heights.
- Movement rule: Follow a line down; whenever you hit a rung, you must cross to the neighboring line, then keep going down.
- Result: Repeating this to the bottom sends each starting number to exactly one result.
How to Use It
Pick the number of players (2–6). The top boxes accept names or numbers, and the bottom boxes accept your own results (a prize, a penalty, an order, anything), and you can edit either as you like. Once you're ready, tap a top box to trace its path. Tap "Reveal All" to see every path at once, each shown in its own color.
Why Is It Always Fair?
The fairness is mathematically guaranteed. Vertical lines never cross each other, and rungs never overlap within the same row, so no matter how complex the ladder looks, every number maps to exactly one result: a true one-to-one match. Two people can never end up with the same result, and no result is ever left unassigned. Since rung placement is fully random, there's no way to predict or rig the outcome in advance.
Trace it yourself: follow a number down, crossing at every rung, and the path you get always matches the path you'd get tracing backward from that same result up to its number. This "the path always reverses cleanly" property is exactly why a ladder can't help but be fair. It isn't luck, it's structure.
Where the Ladder Game Comes From
The name Amidakuji comes from Japan, and it wasn't always shaped like a ladder. It started as a radial pattern fanning out from a center point, resembling the halo behind a statue of Amida Buddha (阿弥陀), hence the name. Players each picked a line from the center and followed it out to a result.
As group sizes grew, radial diagrams got hard to draw by hand, so people switched to the vertical-lines-and-rungs shape we use today, with the same fairness and much easier to sketch. The old name stuck even though the shape changed completely. All you ever needed was paper and a pen, which is why it's still the easiest fair-draw tool around at schools, offices, and gatherings.
How It Compares to Other Random Pickers
- Rock-paper-scissors: Settles one win/loss at a time, and needs replaying as the group grows. A ladder settles everyone's result in one pass.
- Drawing lots from a box: Needs a physical prop, and people draw in sequence, so later players can see what's left. A ladder lets everyone check their own path in any order.
- Going in fixed order (alphabetical, etc.): The same person tends to win or lose every time. A ladder reshuffles completely each round.
- An online random-picker: Just spits out a result with no visible process. A ladder lets you trace the path with your own eyes, which makes the outcome easier to accept.
Good Uses
- Fairly deciding who pays the bill or takes a penalty at a gathering.
- Settling an order (presentations, cleanup duty) without arguing.
- Randomly pairing people up for a gift exchange or team split.
- Splitting a group at once, like hotel room assignments or seat picks.
- Mixing in prizes and blanks at the bottom for a quick mini-game.
FAQ
- Can the result be rigged in advance? No. Rungs are generated randomly each time, and the outcome isn't fixed until the ladder is drawn.
- How many players can play? Anywhere from 2 to 6.
- Can I click the same number again on the same ladder? Yes, a given ladder always sends a number to the same result. Tap "Reshuffle" for a brand-new ladder.
- Can I edit the result text later? Yes, any time before you generate a new ladder.
- Where does the name "ladder game" come from? Japan's radial Amidakuji lottery kept its name even after its shape changed to a ladder; Korean just calls it by what it looks like.
- What's better about it than rock-paper-scissors or dice? It can assign many people to many different results all at once, while rock-paper-scissors and dice only settle one outcome per round.