Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

coyrls

pmbsa wrote: »

I just found a certificate for £100 worth of bonds I bought for my daughter 13 years ago..... I checked last night and they havn't won a penny.... Sounds like the greatest "government backed" scam known to man. You have to applaud them for it. :T

How much did you expect them to have won? Nothing is probably the outcome with the highest probability. They certainly couldn't have won a penny.

eskbanker

pmbsa wrote: »

I just found a certificate for £100 worth of bonds I bought for my daughter 13 years ago..... I checked last night and they havn't won a penny.... Sounds like the greatest "government backed" scam known to man.

Hardly - if you'd taken the time to understand how they work, you'd have realised that the odds of winning nothing over 13 years with a £100 holding are 52.76%, i.e. it's more likely than winning something.

Still doesn't make it a scam obviously, as you get your money back if you want, which isn't the hallmark of most actual scams reported on here....

firestone

One of this months £100,000 winners won on a £10 bond(total holding £20) bought in 1989 so maybe luck not scam:beer:

Kevin_Clark_54

As the acronym ERNIE implies, it is a random draw which I believe is audited. Therefore it makes no difference how your numbers are held, it is pure luck.

polymaff

Kevin_Clark_54 wrote: »

As the acronym ERNIE implies, it is a random draw which I believe is audited. Therefore it makes no difference how your numbers are held, it is pure luck.

Given NS&I's record of systematic incompetence it wouldn't suprise me if the process is not solely down to luck.

I've yet to read any robust proof that it is not, though.

Kevin_Clark_54

Despite having more than £6K in Premium Bonds, mostly for over 12 years, I have never won more than £25. On the first such occasion, ERNIE explained to me that this was a reserve prize, as the original winner had redeemed their bonds. I often wish they hadn't, so that rather than my number being pulled out last in one month's draw, it could have been selected first in the following month's draw.

polymaff

Kevin_Clark_54 wrote: »

Despite having more than £6K in Premium Bonds, mostly for over 12 years, I have never won more than £25.

Given your relatively low holding - and that, as is typical, last month 98.2% of the prizes were £25 ones - you are surprised?

Predictability comes with a big holding. My £50k is a very steady producer of nearly 90% of NS&Is declared rate.

Just as expected.

eskbanker

Kevin_Clark_54 wrote: »

On the first such occasion, ERNIE explained to me that this was a reserve prize, as the original winner had redeemed their bonds. I often wish they hadn't, so that rather than my number being pulled out last in one month's draw, it could have been selected first in the following month's draw.

In the absence of any smilies or equivalent indicators I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but, in the context of the amount of spurious myths that build up around premium bonds, you're not seriously under the impression that if your bond number was top of the reserve list but hadn't been allocated a prize one month, it would have been at the top of the pile next time round and therefore won a big prize?!

jamesperrett

polymaff wrote: »

Given NS&I's record of systematic incompetence it wouldn't suprise me if the process is not solely down to luck.

I've yet to read any robust proof that it is not, though.

I remember seeing an article many years ago that said that the actual random element of ERNIE was the noise measured across a pair of back to back zener diodes. The article at

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6289-prize-draw-uses-heat-for-random-numbers/

suggests that they now use transistors for the noise generating mechanism.

billybird13

Where is the best/safest place to buy premium bonds from. I am new to this.