Premium Bond Winner ?

Jonbvn

Barnetbear wrote: »

But also the more bonds that are 'live'/held by people the less chance there is of winning. Why? Because ERNIE draws numbers whether the numbers are live (ie bought) or not. When a bond is not held no prize is won and the prize is allocated to the next live bond until all the prizes are issued for that month's draw. Hence the more held bonds rather than unheld (ie not sold) bonds then the more held bonds there are which have to be paid if drawn before yours. Prizes are paid on a first live bond drawn first paid basis - if there are more live bonds then there's less chance ERNIE will continue drawing until he gets to yours or mine since a larger number of new live bonds means there's less unhelds to skip over. Whether random chance says yours or mine may be drawn early enough or not is something different.

But if more bonds are held then there is more prize money to distrubute, meaning the chance of yours or mine winning remain unchanged.

Barnetbear

Jonbvn wrote: »

But if more bonds are held then there is more prize money to distrubute, meaning the chance of yours or mine winning remain unchanged.

You're saying that they add more £50 prizes the more bonds that are bought? How quickly do they make that adjustment? It's news to me! But happy news.

But if 100 bonds are bought at £100 they can only add 2 prizes (at £50 each).

You only need 1 bond (value £1) to win.

So if £100 of bonds are bought, that's 2 new £50 prizes perhaps, but 100 new competing bond numbers to contend with and just 2 more prizes of £50 available.

mayb_2

But like the man said Barnetnear your chances of winning remain the same - so the question is are you willing to take the chance that it wont be you?

Barnetbear

mayb wrote: »

But like the man said Barnetnear your chances of winning remain the same - so the question is are you willing to take the chance that it wont be you?

They don't remain the same ! They decrease.
As I said.

beingjdc

Barnetbear wrote: »

So if £100 of bonds are bought, that's 2 new £50 prizes perhaps, but 100 new competing bond numbers to contend with and just 2 more prizes of £50 available.

But each bond didn't have a 100% chance of winning to start with. Think this through.

Imagine there is a lottery with 1000 tickets, and 20 £50 prizes. Your chances of winning by buying one ticket are 1 in 50.

Now imagine there are 1100 tickets sold, and they increase the draw to 22 £50 prizes. Your chances of winning by buying one ticket are still 1 in 50.

Barnetbear

Last time I'm going to try to explain it! The more bonds held the less chance of you winning unless you up your stake. Max stake £30K, so there's a limit (thankfully). Every time someone buys £100 of bonds there's money in the pot for 2 more £50 prizes or one more £100 prize. But there's 100 more live bonds. That means that if any of those 100 bonds are chosen by ERNIE before yours and the prizes run out in that draw then you've not won at all in that draw. Had those 100 new bonds not been in the draw you'd have been more likely to win by whatever % that 100 represents (even if just 0.000001). Therefore, the more bonds that are live and eligible for a prize, the less chance the other live ones will get picked. If you think differently, then you think it through, and I hope we all win regardless, though I've much reduced my holdings as in my circumstances is sensible. That said, people do win, and there's no telling who will be next, so it's all down to randomness or your destiny or whatever.

beingjdc

Barnetbear wrote: »

Last time I'm going to try to explain it! The more bonds held the less chance of you winning unless you up your stake. Max stake £30K, so there's a limit (thankfully). Every time someone buys £100 of bonds there's money in the pot for 2 more £50 prizes or one more £100 prize. But there's 100 more live bonds. That means that if any of those 100 bonds are chosen by ERNIE before yours and the prizes run out in that draw then you've not won at all in that draw. Had those 100 new bonds not been in the draw you'd have been more likely to win by whatever % that 100 represents (even if just 0.000001).

You really are just wrong.

If there were two fewer prizes, the draw would end sooner. Suppose there are twenty thousand prizes in total. Your chance of winning one of the first twenty thousand is reduced by a tiny amount, as you quote, but then you have a chance of winning the two new ones which you didn't previously exist, which I don't see how you've accounted for. You're ignoring the fact that with more bonds held, your chances of winning for each individual number drawn will be lower, but there will be more numbers drawn in total.

If this weren't true, then pretty much every bond anyone had in the 1970s would have to have been a winner for there to be any chance at all of anyone ever winning today - and that wasn't the case. Look again at my lottery example. Yes, your chances of winning one of the first twenty prizes falls from 1 in 50 to 1 in 55, but then you have a further two 1 in 55 chances of winning the two new prizes. So you have 100*(22/55) per cent chance of winning, as against a 100*(20/50) chance of winning. That number's 40 in both cases.

What you're missing is that yes, if 100 more bonds are bought, you compete with 100 more bonds, but each of your bonds is *already* competing with far more than 100 bonds as it is, so it doesn't take 1 extra prize per 1 extra bond to keep the odds the same. In fact the odds of winning are 1 in 21,000, and they have been 1 in 21,000 for some time, so it takes 1 extra prize for every extra £21,000 people invest to keep those odds the same.

Another simple example based on low numbers.

Say £21 million bonds are held. There would therefore be 1000 prizes. You hold £1000, so your odds of winning are 1 in 21,000.

Now £42 million bonds are held. There would therefore be 2000 prizes. You hold £1000 - your odds of winning are still 1 in 21,000, even though you are competing against 21 million extra bonds.

Stavros_3

I've taken Martin's advice. Just got my 100k retirement lump sum. I had considered putting 30k into PB's but on doing my research I have put the lot into a 1 yr fixed rate bond of 6.8% until things settle in the markets or better products come along.

Iamstressed

:j

I was given £100 worth in 1950 and have NEVER had any wins!

ukchriss

:rolleyes:

My grandmother gave me £1000 in 1959.

I've had just one win of £1000 in 1980 so i then bought £500 more

Have had no wins since.

Must be my turn again soon!?! :rotfl: