Free · No sign-up · Takes no moneyMelbourne Cup Sweep Generator
Paste your office list, draw the field at random, and get the prize split worked out — ready to print and pin up. Tuesday 3 November 2026.
The 2026 field is declared after the last race on Derby Day, Saturday 31 October — paste it in then. Put a minus sign in front of a runner to leave it out of the draw.
Buy-in, how the pot splits, and what happens if a runner is scratched. Settle it before the draw, not after.
Both lists are shuffled with a cryptographic shuffle and dealt in rotation, so nobody can argue about the order you typed names in.
One sheet showing who holds what and what each place pays. That sheet is the whole record you need.
What a Melbourne Cup sweep is
The Melbourne Cup is run over 3200 metres at Flemington on the first Tuesday in November — Tuesday 3 November in 2026 — and it is the one race of the year that people who never watch racing still stop for. Metropolitan Melbourne gets a public holiday for it. Everywhere else, the office gathers round a screen at about ten past three.
The sweep is what makes that work for people with no interest in form. Everyone puts in the same small amount, the runners are drawn out at random, and for three and a half minutes you have a horse. No knowledge required, no bookmaker involved, and the person who has never watched a race before wins about as often as the one who studies the form guide — which is most of the point.
Splitting the pot
The common split is 60% to first, 25% to second and 15% to third. Plenty of offices carve a small consolation out of that for whoever draws the runner that finishes last, which is why this page starts at 60/25/10/5. With twenty-four people in at A$5 each, that is a A$120 pot paying A$72, A$30, A$12 and A$6. Change the four numbers to whatever your office agrees; the page only insists that they add up to 100.
Scratchings
Runners get withdrawn in the days before the race, and occasionally on the morning. There is no universally correct answer to what happens to that person's stake — the two normal ones are a redraw from the spare runners, or a refund. What matters is that you decide before the draw. Announced afterwards, either answer looks like it was chosen to suit somebody.
What this page does and does not do
It draws names and does arithmetic. It takes no money, holds no stake, accepts no bets and pays nothing out — the cash never leaves your office. Sweeps are treated differently in different places and some workplaces have their own rules about them, so if you are organising one it is worth a quick check rather than an assumption.
Questions
How does an office sweep actually work?
Everyone puts in the same amount — commonly A$2 to A$20. The runners in the race are drawn out at random, one to each person, and written down. When the real race is run, whoever holds the winning runner takes the biggest share of the pot, with smaller shares for second, third and often last.
What if we have more or fewer people than runners?
Both are normal. With fewer people than runners, choose “deal every runner” and people simply hold more than one. With more people than runners, the extras share a runner and split whatever it wins. The generator handles either without anyone being left out silently.
What happens if a horse is scratched?
Agree the rule before you draw, because afterwards it always feels unfair to somebody. The two normal answers are redraw that person from the spare runners, or refund their stake. Put a minus sign in front of a runner in the list to leave it out of the draw entirely.
When is the 2026 Melbourne Cup field known?
The final field and the barrier draw are confirmed after the last race on Derby Day, Saturday 31 October 2026 — the Saturday before the Cup. Until then this page gives you numbered slots to fill in; there is no point pretending to know names that do not exist yet.
How should we split the prize money?
The most common split is 60% to first, 25% to second and 15% to third. Many offices take a small last-place consolation out of that, which is why this page defaults to 60/25/10/5. Change the four numbers to whatever your office agrees — they just have to add up to 100.
Is this gambling?
This page is not. It is a random draw and some arithmetic: it takes no money, holds no stake, accepts no bets and pays nothing out. Whatever your office does with actual cash is between you and your workplace rules, and in some places sweeps are regulated — check before you organise one.
Is the draw really random?
Yes. Both lists are shuffled with a Fisher-Yates shuffle driven by crypto.getRandomValues, the browser’s cryptographic random source, and then dealt in rotation. Nothing about the order you typed the names in survives into the result.