Premium Bond Winner ?

tunde10

eskbanker said:

redpete said:

tunde10 said:

Nothing on £11k, AVG holding last 12m of about £14k & returned only £100 this year. Terrible luck.

MSE Premium Bond prize calculator says that with a holding of £14k the prizes over a year would come to £100 with average luck - so you've not had terrible luck.

As usual the calculator doesn't tell the full story, and £125 would actually be a more realistic expectation for £14K (it's just that £100 is more likely than £150, without the middle option being presented), but in any case it's been reset to look forward with the new odds, so a 0.7% return over the past year (at better odds) is definitely below par....

Thank you. The whole year i've had it is obviously with the 1.4% headline rate. So realistically, i should have made £175 so only just over half of that is terrible luck.

Swipe

£50 on max holding (1.4% return on the last 6 months)

zenshi

I’ve had £700 in since May 2020 and have had 3 x £25

JGal

Have only won 1 month this financial year on a full holding. By far the worst run in last 6 years where I'd only ever gone two consecutive months without a prize on two occasions. It's almost as if the prize fund rate plummeted in May,

pbcpdeveloper

JGal said:

Have only won 1 month this financial year on a full holding. By far the worst run in last 6 years where I'd only ever gone two consecutive months without a prize on two occasions. It's almost as if the prize fund rate plummeted in May,

I suppose it can happen but its difficult to believe.  The full limit is 50k and you have held that amount with the same numbers since 2015 (when the 50k limit came in) ?

JGal

pbcpdeveloper said:

JGal said:

Have only won 1 month this financial year on a full holding. By far the worst run in last 6 years where I'd only ever gone two consecutive months without a prize on two occasions. It's almost as if the prize fund rate plummeted in May,

I suppose it can happen but its difficult to believe.  The full limit is 50k and you have held that amount with the same numbers since 2015 (when the 50k limit came in) ?

Yep. 30k from June 2014, 40k from Sept 2014, 50k from Aug 2015.

cricidmuslibale

I had a period of 3 out of 4 months winning nothing at all this summer on a full holding. I thought at the time that ERNIE was failing to include my numbers in the monthly draw even though one would think that would be impossible. So I do kind of see where you are coming from and very much sympathise! [Especially as before 24th November with average luck, one would have expected to win just over 2 prizes per month on average with a full holding, the prize-winning odds being 24500 to 1 until 24th Nov, 34500 to 1 now.]

cricidmuslibale

One crucial thing to bear in mind though, Premium Bonds became very attractive from last spring to 24th November with the rate of 1.4% not being reduced at all whereas most other non-NS&I interest rates were reduced significantly after the Bank of England base rate cut to 0.1%. So a lot of people may well have increased their holding in Premium Bonds considerably or indeed invested in Premium Bonds for the very 1st time from last spring onwards. The more money that is invested in Premium Bonds in total, the less likely it is that with investing the full £50,000 you will necessarily receive an average of 2 prizes per month before 24th Nov, 1.5 prizes per month now, over say a span of just a few months. The longer you keep money in Premium Bonds though the more likely it is that you will receive roughly the average number of prizes one would expect per year which now is I believe either 17 or 18 (mostly £25 prizes) on a full holding.

pbcpdeveloper

Thats partially correct, the number of people investing in Premium Bonds (or the number of bonds bought) has increased a lot recently like you say, but this is catered for because the number of prizes drawn is increased in line with this to maintain their target % rate.    This month of course they reduced the target rate by drawing 1 million less bond numbers.

eskbanker

cricidmuslibale said:

The more money that is invested in Premium Bonds in total, the less likely it is that with investing the full £50,000 you will necessarily receive an average of 2 prizes per month before 24th Nov, 1.5 prizes per month now, over say a span of just a few months.

Each month's prize fund is adjusted to remain at a set percentage of the issued bonds (preserving the 1 in 34,500 chance of winning), so increases in the total number of issued bonds makes no difference to an individual's chances of winning (other than insignificantly infinitesimal fractions associated with very minor changes to the exact mix of prizes)!  Obviously that prize fund percentage has just changed but that's a different issue....