I'm sure that there is a better way to do this, but just off the top of my head: 

use List::Util qw/ shuffle max /;
my %animals = ( alligator => 100, bear => 90, cat => 80, jellyfish => 
+10 );

my @popular_list = shuffle map { ( $_ ) x $animals{ $_ } } keys %anima
+ls;
my $popular_pick = $popular_list[ rand @popular_list ];

my @impartial_list = shuffle keys %animals;
my $impartial_pick = $impartial_list[ rand @impartial_list ];

my $max_val = 1 + max values %animals;
my @unpopular_list = shuffle map { ( $_ ) x ( $max_val - $animals{ $_ 
+} ) } keys %animals;
my $unpopular_pick = $unpopular_list[ rand @unpopular_list ];

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In reply to Re: Randomly choosing from a set of alternatives with varying popularity by jwkrahn
in thread Randomly choosing from a set of alternatives with varying popularity by ibm1620

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