Premium Bond Winner ?

eskbanker

justwantedtosay said:

Although the headline rate has gone up by 8.8% (from 3.3% to 3.7%) the average prize value has gone up by 12.1%, from £66 to £74. I'm not sure I can explain that...?

3.3% to 3.7% is also 12.1%, not 8.8%!

justwantedtosay

eskbanker said:

justwantedtosay said:

Although the headline rate has gone up by 8.8% (from 3.3% to 3.7%) the average prize value has gone up by 12.1%, from £66 to £74. I'm not sure I can explain that...?

3.3% to 3.7% is also 12.1%, not 8.8%!

Oh God! So it is. I worked out that 3.3 is 8.8% less than 3.7 when I should, of course, have been working out that 3.7 is 12.1% more than 3.3. No wonder it didn't make sense. I shouldn't have tried to cut back on the tablets.

polymaff

Some early thoughts:

Interesting to see that the split-up percentages of the prize fund have changed for July.  They are now 10% / 10%/ 80%.

So, prizes you are likely to win before you die were 90% of a 3.3% rate, i.e. 2.97%.  From July 2023 they'll be 80% of 3.7%, i.e 2.96%.

Also the approximation I use is more fuzzy !

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out over the following months

subjecttocontract

Let's not forget premium bonds are tax free.
So 3.7% is really the equivalent of 4.62% for a basic rate taxpayer & 6.16% for a higher rate taxpayer.

eskbanker

polymaff said:

Some early thoughts:

Interesting to see that the split-up percentages of the prize fund have changed for July.  They are now 10% / 10%/ 80%.

So, prizes you are likely to win before you die were 90% of a 3.3% rate, i.e. 2.97%.  From July 2023 they'll be 80% of 3.7%, i.e 2.96%.

Also the approximation I use is more fuzzy !

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out over the following months

The 10/10/80 change happened several changes ago, last year:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79700162#Comment_79700162

Macsidia

My reaction to the Premium Bonds rate increase to 3.7%

Any kind of increase is always welcomed from me and yeah it was probably a bit overdue to be fair. It's still behind the market leading rates but at least it closes up the gap somewhat. What I would like to see is perhaps a little rebalancing at the top prizes, a 3rd £1m prize and perhaps some £250K's between the £1m & £100K's.

I know Premium Bonds aren't the best place for my savings as regular 20% tax payer but I use Premium Bonds as an alternative to the National Lottery having had previous issues with gambling several years ago.

eskbanker

Macsidia said:

What I would like to see is perhaps a little rebalancing at the top prizes, a 3rd £1m prize and perhaps some £250K's between the £1m & £100K's.

If you look far enough back in this thread you'll find posts expressing exactly the opposite, i.e. 'why not split up one of the two £1m prizes into £25s and create more winners', but either way round, posting hypothetical wishes on here is unlikely to influence NS&I's decisions!

Macsidia

eskbanker said:

Macsidia said:

What I would like to see is perhaps a little rebalancing at the top prizes, a 3rd £1m prize and perhaps some £250K's between the £1m & £100K's.

If you look far enough back in this thread you'll find posts expressing exactly the opposite, i.e. 'why not split up one of the two £1m prizes into £25s and create more winners', but either way round, posting hypothetical wishes on here is unlikely to influence NS&I's decisions!

Yeah true. Different people are looking for different things. If I was looking for smaller payouts of more £25's then the money would be in Tandem.

ukbren

I've won nothing this year on £8k.  This news is a bit meh to me, as I'm just as likely to continue to win nothing.  I had a reasonable run of luck last year until they increased the prize rate and reduced the number of £25 prizes so I would certainly be in the "more £25 prizes" camp when they increase the prize rate.

eskbanker

ukbren said:

I've won nothing this year on £8k.  This news is a bit meh to me, as I'm just as likely to continue to win nothing.  I had a reasonable run of luck last year until they increased the prize rate and reduced the number of £25 prizes so I would certainly be in the "more £25 prizes" camp when they increase the prize rate.

Just to be clear, they only reduced the £25 prizes by replacing them with the same number of higher value prizes!  The total number of prizes (relative to the number of bonds) has remained the same, hence the chances being 24,000 to one for each bond in each draw since last October, which was an improvement over what had gone before....