Premium Bond Winner ?

borefest

it’s sad I know but when the 1st lands on a weekend it really irks me💷🍀

Macsidia

borefest said:

it’s sad I know but when the 1st lands on a weekend it really irks me💷🍀

With this day and age of technology. You would think nowadays it shouldn't matter which day of the week the 1st falls on and whether it's a bank holiday or not. (New Year & May Day.) I guess it's just a traditional thing now that someone hits the draw button on ERNIE on the first working day of the month at 9.30am.

Section62

Macsidia said:

borefest said:

it’s sad I know but when the 1st lands on a weekend it really irks me💷🍀

I guess it's just a traditional thing now that someone hits the draw button on ERNIE on the first working day of the month at 9.30am.

Someone pushes the button several days before the end of the previous month. They need time between the actual generation of random numbers (the draw) and the announcement of the results in order to do various background things... including the Government Actuary's Department doing a verification that the drawn numbers are sufficiently random.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gad-and-ernie-5

Swipe

Macsidia said:

borefest said:

it’s sad I know but when the 1st lands on a weekend it really irks me💷🍀

With this day and age of technology. You would think nowadays it shouldn't matter which day of the week the 1st falls on and whether it's a bank holiday or not. (New Year & May Day.) I guess it's just a traditional thing now that someone hits the draw button on ERNIE on the first working day of the month at 9.30am.

I heard Agent Million refuses to work weekends

justwantedtosay

gt94sss2 said:

justwantedtosay said:

ColdIron said:

NS&I raises rates: Another rise in premium bonds interest rate to 4% from August draw and odds improved from 24,000 to 22,000:1

Direct Saver and Income Bonds rates rise from 2.85% to 3.4% from 13 July.

https://www.nsandi.com/interest-rates

Do we know how the August prizes will be shared out yet? 

Yes, we do. From their press release*:

Thank you. I looked on their How we share out Premium Bond prizes but that's not been updated yet.

justwantedtosay

eskbanker said:

justwantedtosay said:

Do we know how the August prizes will be shared out yet? I'm guessing it must mean that there will be proportionally more smaller prizes and fewer blank months...?

Not sure why you'd expect proportionally more smaller prizes, but the split by value of the prize pot remains at 10/10/80% between high/medium/low prize bands (where low is £25/50/100).

Because, ignoring the change in rate, if the odds have improved there must be more prizes, which therefore must have a lower average value, which can only be done by increasing the number of smaller prizes.

While the 'lower value' prizes together still account for 10% of the fund they've increased the proportion of £25 prizes against those of £50 and £100 meaning the average value of a prize will drop from £74 to £73.33* - despite the rate rise - though you will stand a better chance of winning one and, hopefully, of having fewer winless months.

There are 9.2% more prizes overall, and 9.2% more lower value ones, but 13.2% more £25 prizes while only 7.5% more £50 and £100 prizes. The same amount of money, again ignoring the rate rise, is split between more winners.

There are 8.6% more £5,000 prizes and 8.2% more £500s in August compared to July. I guess the difference is down to there being no change in the number of £1m prizes meaning the number of £5k - £100k prizes has increased disproportionately.

I think it's strange that they continue to lower the chances of winning a medium value prize compared those of winning lower or higher value ones as most people, even those with a full holding, won't ever win a big prize - £5k or more - and aren't greatly impressed by winning a small one, but £1,000 would be a good win and actually not that remote a chance, at least if the number of medium prizes had gone up in line with the others - well, between £50 and £100,000 anyway.

Lord, I hope I have got my sums right!

* £60.12 to £59.39 for the lower value prizes you're actually going to win.

poppystar

Am I the only one that wishes they’d up the maximum allowed holding? I never see that mentioned in these posts but I’d be really grateful to keep another £10k outside the grips of the tax man!

Primrose

poppystar said:

Am I the only one that wishes they’d up the maximum allowed holding? I never see that mentioned in these posts but I’d be really grateful to keep another £10k outside the grips of the tax man!

I think it would be appreciated if they would even stretch the maximum holding just to allow prizes to be reinvested.

cymruchris

poppystar said:

Am I the only one that wishes they’d up the maximum allowed holding? I never see that mentioned in these posts but I’d be really grateful to keep another £10k outside the grips of the tax man!

In the interests of encouraging savers rather than spenders, it might be something they're considering, who knows?

it's been a few years since the last increase.

£20k to £30k - 2003

£30k to £40k - 2014

£40k to £50k - 2015

justwantedtosay

poppystar said:

Am I the only one that wishes they’d up the maximum allowed holding? I never see that mentioned in these posts but I’d be really grateful to keep another £10k outside the grips of the tax man!

One obvious drawback is that it means the millions of people with smaller holdings are even less likely to win anything, ever. If you've been able to use up your £20k ISA allowance every year you really shouldn't worry too much about the tax on the interest from another £10,000 which even if you're getting 6% on your savings is only £120 for a basic rate tax payer, and if you're in a higher band you can count yourself fortunate as many millions aren't.