Premium Bonds - Are my Bonds being missed in the draw?

meanmachine_2

Paul_Herring wrote:

In what way are they not 'truly' random?

There's no such thing as truly random.

A computer will be following a program that will still create patterns, no matter how seemingly undetectable.

Random doesn't exist.

However, the OP's comments do seem to suggest there is a glitch of some kind. Well spotted.

Paul_Herring

A computer will be following a program that will still create patterns, no matter how seemingly undetectable.

As pointed out earlier, ERNIE uses something outside of the computer program to help generate random numbers (thermal noise in the latest incarnation.) These aren't pseudo-random numbers it's generating, which is what I thought webwiz seemed to be implying.

trawden

the Child Tax overpaid me by £500. I knew (and kept telling them), but i put this into premium bonds. I am now paying the overpayment back a little each month, so i kept the bonds.

Last month this set of bonds won me £500. So thank you mr blair for setting up a totally useless admin process, which allowed me to win £500.

My son recently won £1000 (only had £1500) and my parents regularly win £50 (they have a lot more than me).

We often cash in the bonds (i use to save for xmas, holidays etc) and then reinvest. Dont know if this makes a difference.

webwiz

What does "truly random" mean?

This is actually a very difficult concept and can't be covered here. Suffice it say that all experts, and also me, consider Ernie is random enough.

If there is a problem I am sure it lies in the data processing which is done after Ernie has done its bit. Every other government dept has trouble getting its data processing to work so why should NSI be any different? Testing software which works on very large data bases is notoriously difficult, and off hand I cannot think of a bigger database than the premium bond one, and remember it is constantly being updated with new and cancelled bonds.

Mikeyorks

Why on earth are you all replying to a question asked 2 years ago?????:rolleyes:

meanmachine_2

Oh you're right. A 2005 posting.

Can "Fabwitch" never waste our time again please, otherwise I'll be hankering for a banning.

Paul_Herring

Mikeyorks wrote:

Why on earth are you all replying to a question asked 2 years ago?????:rolleyes:

Because, unusually, someone appears to have used the search function instead of starting a new thread? (That's the only reason I can think of such an old thread resurfacing)

trawden

meanmachine wrote:

Oh you're right. A 2005 posting.

Can "Fabwitch" never waste our time again please, otherwise I'll be hankering for a banning.

I think that's pretty mean, especially as there were lots of new posts since. What are we supposed to do? Why aren't old posts deleted if that is the case?

Mikeyorks

trawden wrote:

What are we supposed to do? Why aren't old posts deleted if that is the case?

Good for research and reference of things that have been asked / answered before. Saves re-inventing the wheel, as you can just post a link to it if someone asks a similar question?

But it's just a bit odd to pull up a 2 year old post - and then simply continue it as though it were a current one?

brixandmorta

Just for the record I whacked a grand into premium bonds 2 years ago, never had a sniff!!!:mad: