Regulation

Middle_of_the_Road

metrobus said:

I had 50k in it for about 8 months, did not have a single win .
When I put it in to the calculator it worked out that I would have had a far greater chance of winning a million than getting NOTHING.
It’s fixed for sure.

That was very unlucky indeed, the odds on that must be very low. Could make you think there was an issue with your holding. 

oldernonethewiser

metrobus said:

I had 50k in it for about 8 months, did not have a single win .
When I put it in to the calculator it worked out that I would have had a far greater chance of winning a million than getting NOTHING.
It’s fixed for sure.

And the moon is made of cheese.

Thumbs_Up

I have a 25k cash bond maturing tomorrow. Depends how you measure luck, generally speaking, lady luck never falls on my lap. So not sure yet, premium bonds at 4.65% or easy access with Santander at 5.08%. The thing is I want a Sherman tank and some land to drive it on. And that in a nutshell is what premium bonds is all about.

subjecttocontract

Thumbs_Up said:

I have a 25k cash bond maturing tomorrow. Depends how you measure luck, generally speaking, lady luck never falls on my lap. So not sure yet, premium bonds at 4.65% or easy access with Santander at 5.08%. The thing is I want a Sherman tank and some land to drive it on. And that in a nutshell is what premium bonds is all about.

£25000 @ 5.08% will pay, after 20% tax 4.06%. If you're a 40% taxpayer it's 3.05%
You're better off with The PB's.

Thumbs_Up

subjecttocontract said:

Thumbs_Up said:

I have a 25k cash bond maturing tomorrow. Depends how you measure luck, generally speaking, lady luck never falls on my lap. So not sure yet, premium bonds at 4.65% or easy access with Santander at 5.08%. The thing is I want a Sherman tank and some land to drive it on. And that in a nutshell is what premium bonds is all about.

£25000 @ 5.08% will pay, after 20% tax 4.06%. If you're a 40% taxpayer it's 3.05%
You're better off with The PB's.

I picked up on your comments earlier, tank driving lessons it is then, in anticipation of course.  

masonic

grumbler said:

la531983 said:

Its random. What more of an explanation do you need?

oldernonethewiser said:

neillaw said:

Hello,

My father and I both have 50k in premium bonds and without fail he wins more than I do every single month (for about 50ish months)

I'm sure it's all above board...  But I am thinking the odds of this are higher than winning the lottery!  Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?  I did question this once to NS&I and they assured me everything was fine, but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

Thanks,
Neil

As above, it is random.

DullGreyGuy said:

neillaw said:

My father and I both have 50k in premium bonds and without fail he wins more than I do every single month (for about 50ish months)

I'm sure it's all above board...  But I am thinking the odds of this are higher than winning the lottery!  Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?  I did question this once to NS&I and they assured me everything was fine, but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

People are very poor at understanding randomness, 

dunstonh said:

Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?

NS&I Premium bonds are like a tombola.    Have you ever been in a large tombola where you get several people win multiple times, whilst most win nothing and the remainder win once?      

but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

It is a game of chance.   You are either lucky or unlucky.

Well-well...
If A and B have exactly the same amounts, the chances are the same.
Every month A has 50% (1/2) chances of winning bigger amount than B.
The probability of A winning more than B 50 times in a row is (1/2)^50= 1/(10^15)=0.000000000000001.
This ignores the chances of winning exactly the same amount, including zero.

Billion is 10^9
10^15 is million of billions

There are about 1.2 x 10^11 bonds that go into each draw, and although that is made up of many with less than a full holding, we could take the total bonds in circulation and apportion them into £50k holdings to make 2.43 million full holdings to consider. This would give about 3x10^12 chances for any two holdings to generate the result of one consistently returning more than the other, weighing against your 1 in 10^15 (or more). So what I think we have here is an extreme version of the Birthday Paradox.

That said, it is still sufficiently unlikely for me to doubt that in the past 50 draws there has never been an occasion when the OP and the father have both won nowt, or £25, £50, or £100 each, etc. Especially when 50 draws takes us back to a period dominated by £25 prizes. I suppose it is more likely that the father is playing an elaborate and long-standing practical joke on the OP, but the result is not beyond the realms of possibility.

Thumbs_Up

subjecttocontract said:

Thumbs_Up said:

I have a 25k cash bond maturing tomorrow. Depends how you measure luck, generally speaking, lady luck never falls on my lap. So not sure yet, premium bonds at 4.65% or easy access with Santander at 5.08%. The thing is I want a Sherman tank and some land to drive it on. And that in a nutshell is what premium bonds is all about.

£25000 @ 5.08% will pay, after 20% tax 4.06%. If you're a 40% taxpayer it's 3.05%
You're better off with The PB's.

I'm sure this has been asked ad infinitum on other threads. The draw is on the 2nd of the month and you have to wait a calendar month to be entered in the draw.

So, if i buy 25k premium bonds today the 3rd, i will lose potentially 2 months interest. So, when is the best time to get your money in? the 31st?

Sg28

Thumbs_Up said:

subjecttocontract said:

Thumbs_Up said:

I have a 25k cash bond maturing tomorrow. Depends how you measure luck, generally speaking, lady luck never falls on my lap. So not sure yet, premium bonds at 4.65% or easy access with Santander at 5.08%. The thing is I want a Sherman tank and some land to drive it on. And that in a nutshell is what premium bonds is all about.

£25000 @ 5.08% will pay, after 20% tax 4.06%. If you're a 40% taxpayer it's 3.05%
You're better off with The PB's.

I'm sure this has been asked ad infinitum on other threads. The draw is on the 2nd of the month and you have to wait a calendar month to be entered in the draw.

So, if i buy 25k premium bonds today the 3rd, i will lose potentially 2 months interest. So, when is the best time to get your money in? the 31st?

Yes wait until the of the month. You may want to give it a day or two before the end just to be sure 25k goes through ok. 

masonic

masonic said:

grumbler said:

la531983 said:

Its random. What more of an explanation do you need?

oldernonethewiser said:

neillaw said:

Hello,

My father and I both have 50k in premium bonds and without fail he wins more than I do every single month (for about 50ish months)

I'm sure it's all above board...  But I am thinking the odds of this are higher than winning the lottery!  Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?  I did question this once to NS&I and they assured me everything was fine, but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

Thanks,
Neil

As above, it is random.

DullGreyGuy said:

neillaw said:

My father and I both have 50k in premium bonds and without fail he wins more than I do every single month (for about 50ish months)

I'm sure it's all above board...  But I am thinking the odds of this are higher than winning the lottery!  Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?  I did question this once to NS&I and they assured me everything was fine, but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

People are very poor at understanding randomness, 

dunstonh said:

Anyone heard anything similar to this happening before?

NS&I Premium bonds are like a tombola.    Have you ever been in a large tombola where you get several people win multiple times, whilst most win nothing and the remainder win once?      

but seems obvious there is some kind of glitch / bug (without thinking more sinister!)  Either that or it's truly a very lucky, or unlucky, chance

It is a game of chance.   You are either lucky or unlucky.

Well-well...
If A and B have exactly the same amounts, the chances are the same.
Every month A has 50% (1/2) chances of winning bigger amount than B.
The probability of A winning more than B 50 times in a row is (1/2)^50= 1/(10^15)=0.000000000000001.
This ignores the chances of winning exactly the same amount, including zero.

Billion is 10^9
10^15 is million of billions

There are about 1.2 x 10^11 bonds that go into each draw, and although that is made up of many with less than a full holding, we could take the total bonds in circulation and apportion them into £50k holdings to make 2.43 million full holdings to consider. This would give about 3x10^12 chances for any two holdings to generate the result of one consistently returning more than the other, weighing against your 1 in 10^15 (or more). So what I think we have here is an extreme version of the Birthday Paradox.

That said, it is still sufficiently unlikely for me to doubt that in the past 50 draws there has never been an occasion when the OP and the father have both won nowt, or £25, £50, or £100 each, etc. Especially when 50 draws takes us back to a period dominated by £25 prizes. I suppose it is more likely that the father is playing an elaborate and long-standing practical joke on the OP, but the result is not beyond the realms of possibility.

I thought it would be interesting to explore this phenomenon with a Monte Carlo simulation. So, 100,000 simulations of the prize draw comparing two £50,000 bond holdings gave the following results (based on the most recent November prize matrix):

Firstly, the number of times both holdings generated the same winnings was 7,612 in 100,000, so 7.6% of the time, making it a 46.2% probability person A would win more than person B or vice versa (in the simulation person A won more 46.3% of the time and person B 46.1%). The above table gives the number of occasions in the 100k simulation where one person got more winnings n times in a row, where the winning streak resets if they win the same or less than their opponent. This puts the odds of a 50-win streak at 1 in 2,500 (based on this specific simulation). Interestingly, the longest winning streak in the simulation was an impressive 59, so that would make the odds of a streak of 60 less than 1 in 100,000.

mebu60

Interesting! And that's on the current prize matrix which is considerably more generous than most of the previous four years in question.