Cashed out

Gers

Strange - two new members each writing a single post against Premium Bonds!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6530313/premium-bond#latest

fourmarks

Pescara said:

Hello all, just wanted to say how pleased I am that I cashed out my £50,000 premium bonds, I am now receiving approximately £200/month on a 1 year fixed rate bond which is considerably more than I was getting with "ernie" When I first invested into the PB in 2017 the interest rates were around1-1.5% and even at that low rate I was reguarly winning £75 per month, since then the PB rates shot up to over 4% but somehow that is when the winnings ended? so in February after 3 zilches on the trot and mediocre "wins" prior to that I pulled the money out concluding that there is probably something underhand going on (who actually knows if the winning declared by NS&I are indeed a reality, just too many losers to be a coinidence in my humble opinion)

And this shrewd insight was only 7 years in the making? Such haste.

Bravepants

I think after nearly 70 years of Premium Bonds' existence we would have heard about any shenanigans way before your "revelation".

Albermarle

slinger2 said:

From what I remember there's a roughly 10% chance of not winning if you hold £50k. So three in a row is unlikely (1000 to 1). However given that there are over a million folk with the maximum holding, there's a 1000 every month in the same boat as you were (3 zilches on the trot). And I suppose there's 1 unlucky person whose gone 6 months without winning.

I remember a couple of posters on here in the past who claimed that despite having the max £50K that they had not won a single prize for over two years ( or longer I can not remember). I tried to work out the odds of that happening, but my calculator could not handle the figure it was so large.
I suspected the posters were being economical with the truth !

masonic

Albermarle said:

slinger2 said:

From what I remember there's a roughly 10% chance of not winning if you hold £50k. So three in a row is unlikely (1000 to 1). However given that there are over a million folk with the maximum holding, there's a 1000 every month in the same boat as you were (3 zilches on the trot). And I suppose there's 1 unlucky person whose gone 6 months without winning.

I remember a couple of posters on here in the past who claimed that despite having the max £50K that they had not won a single prize for over two years ( or longer I can not remember). I tried to work out the odds of that happening, but my calculator could not handle the figure it was so large.
I suspected the posters were being economical with the truth !

I think I've seen the 2 year claim, which had pretty long odds even considering the number of PB in issue, but less probable things happen. Wolfram Alpha is good for these sorts of calculations.

slinger2

masonic said:

Albermarle said:

slinger2 said:

From what I remember there's a roughly 10% chance of not winning if you hold £50k. So three in a row is unlikely (1000 to 1). However given that there are over a million folk with the maximum holding, there's a 1000 every month in the same boat as you were (3 zilches on the trot). And I suppose there's 1 unlucky person whose gone 6 months without winning.

I remember a couple of posters on here in the past who claimed that despite having the max £50K that they had not won a single prize for over two years ( or longer I can not remember). I tried to work out the odds of that happening, but my calculator could not handle the figure it was so large.
I suspected the posters were being economical with the truth !

I think I've seen the 2 year claim, which had pretty long odds even considering the number of PB in issue, but less probable things happen. Wolfram Alpha is good for these sorts of calculations.

(20999/21000)^(50000*24) = 1.5e-25

So you're trillions of times more likely to win the big prize in the lottery than go 2 years without winning anything with 50k PBs

masonic

slinger2 said:

masonic said:

Albermarle said:

slinger2 said:

From what I remember there's a roughly 10% chance of not winning if you hold £50k. So three in a row is unlikely (1000 to 1). However given that there are over a million folk with the maximum holding, there's a 1000 every month in the same boat as you were (3 zilches on the trot). And I suppose there's 1 unlucky person whose gone 6 months without winning.

I remember a couple of posters on here in the past who claimed that despite having the max £50K that they had not won a single prize for over two years ( or longer I can not remember). I tried to work out the odds of that happening, but my calculator could not handle the figure it was so large.
I suspected the posters were being economical with the truth !

I think I've seen the 2 year claim, which had pretty long odds even considering the number of PB in issue, but less probable things happen. Wolfram Alpha is good for these sorts of calculations.

(20999/21000)^(50000*24) = 1.5e-25

So you're trillions of times more likely to win the big prize in the lottery than go 2 years without winning anything with 50k PBs

That's the probability of an isolated set of 50k PBs being so consistently unlucky.  If the argument is that it couldn't happen, you need to consider all 100 billion or so bonds in issue and the chance of any combination of 50k bonds within that number being so consistently unlucky. This shortens the odds considerably, depending on what approach you use to count combinations. But I would suggest given the data it would be plausible to find multiple sets of 50k bonds within the 100bn that haven't won in the last 24 draws - you'd expect to find 120m that have won at least once and 99.9bn that didn't. An individual would still be supremely unlucky to own a full holding of bonds exclusively from the 99.9bn set, but the numbers are large enough for it to be a plausible outcome.

Londonlisa12

On a 50k holding around 2021 I had one £50 in 8 draws, I then cashed them in.I am just unlucky, it’s now getting me £250 per month guaranteed.

Martico

For context, the prize fund rate was hovering around 1% in 2021, compared to 4.4% now

eskbanker

Londonlisa12 said:

On a 50k holding around 2021 I had one £50 in 8 draws, I then cashed them in.I am just unlucky, it’s now getting me £250 per month guaranteed.

Where are you getting 6% after tax on £50K?