Help needed translating number to rows for drawing

[rlleblan1]

I have an excel sheet with names and number of "tickets" they have earned. The goal is to use a random number generator to select multiple winners for a drawing. For this to work, I need a way of taking a large spreadsheet and creating a new row with the name of the individual based on the number of tickets. For example, Cell A2 has the name john and cell B2 has "60", which is the number of tickets he earned. In cell A3 is the name Mary and Cell B3 has "20".

The output, on a new worksheet, would generate 60 rows with the name John in it followed by 20 rows with the name Jane.

Attached an example. Thanks in advance for your help and insight.

 

[Fluff]

For that amount, I very much doubt you will be able to do it with a formula.

 

[rlleblan1]

For that amount, I very much doubt you will be able to do it with a formula.

crud. what other options are there? what if I combine the total for each name? as in the example, the first individual has numerous lines, that could be combined into a single line with total amount. Kendra is in A2, A3, A4 with different amounts for them in B2, B3, B4. Something that takes a unique name and adds all of the numbers together. I could then use the formula you put together.

For that amount, I very much doubt you will be able to do it with a formula.

 

[Fluff]

Unfortunately with the layout in post#3 I don't know how to get the totals for each person.

 

[rlleblan1]

Unfortunately with the layout in post#3 I don't know how to get the totals for each person.

not sure which one is layout 3, but I am reattaching the current layout, does not have merged cells

 

[Fluff]

For that layout you can use the formula I suggested, but if you are going much beyond 1000 cells you could end up with a #value error.

 

[Fluff]

Another option that will cater for more rows

+Fluff 1.xlsm
	A	B	C	D
1
2	John	2		John
3	Mary	1		John
4	Peter	5		Mary
5	Sue	7		Peter
6				Peter
7				Peter
8				Peter
9				Peter
10				Sue
11				Sue
12				Sue
13				Sue
14				Sue
15				Sue
16				Sue
17
Sheet3

Cell Formulas
Range	Formula
D2:D16	D2	=INDEX(A2:A5,FILTERXML("<k><m>"&MID(CONCAT(REPT("</m><m>"&ROW(B2:B5)-ROW(B2)+1,B2:B5)),8,33000)&"</m></k>","//m"))
Dynamic array formulas.