Premium bonds winnings and odd pattern

HedgehogRulez

Clearly another instance of the patriarchy in action. Rise up sisters

PixelPound

42 is very small sample size for statistical odds. Come back in the year 2525 and see how it's looking then.

On PB most people get less than the advertised rate.

greekpig

Thanks for all your replies. I'll just keep tracking it and see if the disparity continues over a load more years.

Give it some more years for more data to accrue and before long we may have the next Govt scandal if Ernie keeps it up! 

solidpro

"I flipped a coin 5 times and it came up heads 4 times, so it's sure to keep coming up heads more often than tails".

No, it isn't.

fourmarks

akm2018 said:

greekpig said:

Thanks both for the replles.

I started tracking when we noticed the pattern, and I had enough information historically to go back to April 22.

Without giving much away, if you have a large holding you win something in most months.

Bearing in mind neither of us have outstripped the advertised return I'd suggest ernie doesn't like my wife!

Let's do some maths.

Say you have 10 bonds, that is, a £10 holding

In a particular month, each bond has a 1 in 22000 chance of winning something. Which is to say, a 21999/22000 chance of NOT winning something. So with your 10 bonds, your chances of NOT winning something, ten times are:

(21999/22000) ^ 10 = 0.9995455475

So almost every month, you won't win something. But you might!

At the other end of the scale, with the max holding of 50000 bonds, your chances of NOT winning something, with every bond, are:

(21999/22000) ^ 50000 = 0.10302548159

Note that this IS NOT ZERO. Yes, 90% of months you will win SOMETHING but 10% of months you won't.

In the middle, someone with a £10000 holding has a ~ 63% chance of getting nothing, in a given month. They have a 0.4% chance of getting nothing in a given YEAR. They'll probably think there's something wrong, or that ernie doesn't like them, if that happens! But now consider a group of 250 10k-holders. This "something wrong" is quite probably going to happen to one of them, every year...

Ah, now I understand.