Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

Eco_Miser

Crashy_Time wrote: »

The £25 win seems to come up reasonably frequently for me, had one yesterday actually, does that make me lucky?

If you've got just ten bonds (as I had), then yes; if you've 50,000 then not particularly.

eskbanker

Crashy_Time wrote: »

The £25 win seems to come up reasonably frequently for me, had one yesterday actually, does that make me lucky?

Considering the rest of us only get prizes when the monthly draws happen (the last one being over a week ago), I'd say you were very lucky if you had a win yesterday!

polymaff

eskbanker wrote: »

Considering the rest of us only get prizes when the monthly draws happen (the last one being over a week ago), I'd say you were very lucky if you had a win yesterday!

Don't be put off, Crashy. My "get" date, as in received the payment to my bank account, was also yesterday.

EachPenny

Eco_Miser wrote: »

None of the 21 bonds my parents bought for me over the years up to my 21st birthday have won anything since, let alone the million, and I've neither cashed them in nor passed away.

Out of interest, what was the total value of the 21 bonds you held at the age of 21? (I'm assuming you don't mean they are all £1 bonds)

kidmugsy

Does any subject - other than NHS pensions - attract so much drivel as premium bonds?

Eco_Miser

EachPenny wrote: »

Out of interest, what was the total value of the 21 bonds you held at the age of 21? (I'm assuming you don't mean they are all £1 bonds)

Why did you assume that?
It was one £1 bond for each year of my life, although not 21 certificates, Premium Bonds didn't exist when I was born. There are £5, £2 and £1, possibly £3 certificates (Actually finding them is too much trouble at the moment).

Kim_13

polymaff wrote: »

Don't be put off, Crashy. My "get" date, as in received the payment to my bank account, was also yesterday.

Mine too.

If someone doesn't check their email regularly or log in when instructed though, they may not know of their prize until it lands in their bank account.

EachPenny

Eco_Miser wrote: »

Why did you assume that?

I meant that in asking the question I was making an assumption they might not have all been £1 bonds - if I assumed the opposite, that they were all £1, then I wouldn't have needed to ask the question.

My parents got £30 of bonds as a wedding present. They had won only a single prize by the time of their golden wedding anniversary. With small amounts like that you may have to wait a very long time to win anything.

fun4everyone

Has anyone else here used the tracing service to find old premium bonds? If so how did you get a good result and how long did they take to get back to you? I have filled out the form and sent it off, fingers crossed

Chapuys

EachPenny wrote: »

There is no con, it is all in the maths. There are fewer of the lower numbered bonds so there are fewer of them eligible to win prizes and so fewer appear in the published lists of winning bond numbers.

For example, when you got bonds in the late 1950's you probably thought a £10 bond was a big investment. That's 10 chances of winning. Today people might consider £1000 in a single bond to be a big investment - 1000 chances of winning. If you look at someone who has £1010 invested in this way then it is 100 times more likely that a winning bond will be in the more recent purchase than the 1950's one.

There are not many larger prizes in comparison to the total number of bonds, so an old low-numbered bond has to be very 'lucky' to appear in the published lists.

The only way of checking to see if older bonds were being discriminated against would be to look at the raw data produced by Ernie before it is filtered to remove the bond numbers which no longer exist. I'm not aware that NS&I publish that data anywhere (although it is checked to confirm randomness).

Many people who held low numbered bonds almost certainly could have become millionaires - had they not decided to give up and cash in their bonds, or pass away. Someone else had the luck to win that million.

If you look at the May 2017 results. Somebody with 1 bond from 1964 won £10,000.