Premium Bonds Article Discussion Area

Sea_Shell

Just out of curiosity...(humour me)

If a person has only won £25 in 5 years of holding Premium Bonds, statistically what sort of holding would they be expected to hold.    £400?

I'm thinking a 1 in 24500 chance of winning a prize / 5 years / 12 months....£408.

strawb_shortcake

For about 12 years we had only £300 we received 2 x £25 in that time. No idea what the odds were at the time 

eskbanker

Sea_Shell said:

Just out of curiosity...(humour me)

If a person has only won £25 in 5 years of holding Premium Bonds, statistically what sort of holding would they be expected to hold.    £400?

I'm thinking a 1 in 24500 chance of winning a prize / 5 years / 12 months....£408.

It's obviously a game of chance so someone winning £25 over five years could hold one bond or 50,000, but if you're trying to find a figure at which a win is more likely than not over five years (if the prize fund rate didn't change, which it's known to be doing soon), the MSE calculator would suggest that this is between £280 and £290, although even at this level there's a non-trivial 16.6% chance of winning more than £25, so if you're trying to reverse engineer a holding for which exactly £25 is the most likely outcome then that'll be more complicated, but does look to be in £420 territory according to the options presented by that calculator....

Sea_Shell

eskbanker said:

Sea_Shell said:

Just out of curiosity...(humour me)

If a person has only won £25 in 5 years of holding Premium Bonds, statistically what sort of holding would they be expected to hold.    £400?

I'm thinking a 1 in 24500 chance of winning a prize / 5 years / 12 months....£408.

It's obviously a game of chance so someone winning £25 over five years could hold one bond or 50,000, but if you're trying to find a figure at which a win is more likely than not over five years (if the prize fund rate didn't change, which it's known to be doing soon), the MSE calculator would suggest that this is between £280 and £290, although even at this level there's a non-trivial 16.6% chance of winning more than £25, so if you're trying to reverse engineer a holding for which exactly £25 is the most likely outcome then that'll be more complicated, but does look to be in £420 territory according to the options presented by that calculator....

You'd have to be seriously unlucky not to have won at least £25 in 5 years, on a £50,000 holding.   😉

sugar_daddy1237

Does anyone know if there is a site which shows the total number of bonds in issue? I think I remember seeing one a while ago but can't find it now.
Thanks 

eskbanker

sugar_daddy1237 said:

Does anyone know if there is a site which shows the total number of bonds in issue? I think I remember seeing one a while ago but can't find it now.

The monthly prize breakdown is shown at https://www.nsandi.com/get-to-know-us/monthly-prize-allocation and shows 3,921,323 prizes in the October draw, so at (static) odds of 1 in 24,500 for any bond to win a prize in any given month, simple maths would suggest about 96 billion bonds in that draw, although they've projected a drop of about 4% for next month's draw....

Edit: didn't need to get the calculator out, the numbers are published in the monthly press releases announcing the winners! So, https://nsandi-corporate.com/news-research/news/premium-bonds-winners-kent-and-humberside includes:

In the October 2020 prize draw, a total of 3,921,323 prizes worth £112,084,475 will be paid out. There were 96,072,406,201 Bond numbers eligible for the draw.

sugar_daddy1237

eskbanker said:

sugar_daddy1237 said:

Does anyone know if there is a site which shows the total number of bonds in issue? I think I remember seeing one a while ago but can't find it now.

The monthly prize breakdown is shown at https://www.nsandi.com/get-to-know-us/monthly-prize-allocation and shows 3,921,323 prizes in the October draw, so at (static) odds of 1 in 24,500 for any bond to win a prize in any given month, simple maths would suggest about 96 billion bonds in that draw, although they've projected a drop of about 4% for next month's draw....

Edit: didn't need to get the calculator out, the numbers are published in the monthly press releases announcing the winners! So, https://nsandi-corporate.com/news-research/news/premium-bonds-winners-kent-and-humberside includes:

In the October 2020 prize draw, a total of 3,921,323 prizes worth £112,084,475 will be paid out. There were 96,072,406,201 Bond numbers eligible for the draw.

That's perfect Eskbanker. Thanks 

sheilavw

me and my siblings each have a £2 premuim bond bought in 1964 by our late Grandparents. None of us have ever won.  I think thats its unlikely we will. £2 was a lot of money then

Sea_Shell

sheilavw said:

me and my siblings each have a £2 premuim bond bought in 1964 by our late Grandparents. None of us have ever won.  I think thats its unlikely we will. £2 was a lot of money then

By my calculations, you've only got to wait another 964 years for that elusive win!!!!

polymaff

sheilavw said:

me and my siblings each have a £2 premuim bond bought in 1964 by our late Grandparents. None of us have ever won.  I think thats its unlikely we will. £2 was a lot of money then

Worth about 10p today (from the government's RPI data.)