Premium Bond Winner ?

Gorgeous_George

If anyone is interested in how successful the additional million pound draws have been, the following is the number of major prizes by month the bond was bought:

Jan-05..... 13
Feb-05..... 12
Mar-05..... 3
Apr-05..... 10
May-05..... 7
Jun-05..... 14
Jul-05..... 14
Aug-05..... 18
Sep-05..... 13
Oct-05..... 17
Nov-05..... 17
Dec-05..... 15
Jan-06..... 15
Feb-06..... 18
Mar-06..... 20
Apr-06..... 16
May-06..... 13
Jun-06..... 20
Jul-06..... 19
Aug-06..... 19
Sep-06..... 19
Oct-06..... 57
Nov-06..... 18
Dec-06..... 18
Jan-07..... 13
Feb-07..... 21
Mar-07..... 24
Apr-07..... 68

Proving that you can fool some of the people some of the time. The Government must have made oodles of money out of these 'special' draws. I bet there's more to come.

Randomness, by the way, does not preclude a bunching of winning numbers. I'm not sure how it works but Ernie doesn't provide the actual winning bond number.



GG

trademark

firstly well done m3 , im not jealous at all

ok 20k re-invested at the end of april following 2 months of £0 wins (the first time that has happened for 2 years), and i won £50 this month .

i dont really need the money so ill leave it for now and see how it goes

june 1x£50 ......... holding £20,100 (kept £50 of bonds back from re-invest for sentimental reasons)

Richard_III_2

So statistically and mathematically speaking, all Bond numbers have an equal :rolleyes: chance of winning the big prize(s). But unless we know the distribution of old numbers to new, we'll never know. What we do know as a fact, is that new bonds win the top prizes. So redeem any old bonds starting with the first 3 digits less than, say 110, and reinvest into new bonds which factually win draws.

nrsql

Looks like over 12% of all premium bonds were bought in April this year, nearly 11% in october last year.
If the results are random.

M3_Sussex

I just downloaded this months winners and stuck them in a spreadsheet sorted by purchase month.
It certainly looks odd. It's here if anyone wants to take a look.

Nenen

:eek: I'm shaking with shock and amazement having just found out that between my dh and I we've just won £250 (3 x 50 + 1 x 100) this month on bonds bought in April!:j :j :j :j :j I know this doesn't compare with a pp who had just won 10K but I'm ecstatic!

We sold our house a few weeks ago and are renting for a while until we find something else to buy (problems affording somehwere in the new area which is soooo expensive) so decided we'd put the majority of our equity into max premium bond holdings in the meantime (got max mini ISAs too) on the remote possibility that we might get a win big enough to enable us buy a decent house! Of course the gamble is/was that we wouldn't even make as much as the interest we'd earn in a savings account.

We've both got a few odd premium bonds from childhood but have never won a bean (not suprisingly with only £15 between us) and have never considered ourselves very lucky in any financial gambles... don't ever win raffles etc. This win means that we are at least equal with what we would have got in a short-term high interest savings account and with the fantastic feeling of winning on top!
Just hope we can keep this up for a few months!!!

I've read some (but not had time to read all) posts on this thread. Am I correct in thinking that the consensus of opinion seems to be that one should withdraw money from premium bonds every once in a while and then reinvest a day later to keep them 'new' as there seems to be a greater chance of winning with 'newer' bonds? if so, how long should we keep our current ones before doing this please?

Nenen

M3_Sussex wrote: »

I just downloaded this months winners and stuck them in a spreadsheet sorted by purchase month.
It certainly looks odd. It's here if anyone wants to take a look.

That looks really interesting but do you know the number of purchasers each year so you can calculate the % bond holdings for each year and hence the statistically likely % winners?

M3_Sussex

I don't think they publish the number of purchasers per year. However, the statistical chance of winning is 24000 to 1.

Pobby

Well £150 between us this month.With 1 £54k holding I have not been over impressed.Now interest rates are on the way up post tax interest would buy us a couple of holidays a year.So it`s all coming out.My wife says``aww it`s just a bit of fun``but it`s proving to be expensive fun!

Gorgeous_George

Two main reasons that old bonds don't win very often are:
1. Years ago, the number of bonds people could buy was limited by the rules.
2. Dead people cannot hold bonds.

After the limit was raised to 30,000 bonds per person, many more bonds were sold. Naturally, many more prizes were won by more recently purchased bonds (because there were more bonds in existance). This fuelled the 'new bonds are better' nonsense and lots of older bonds were cashed in and new bonds bought. Even more prizes were then won by new bonds and the 'nonsense' gained more credability.

The bottom line is, all bonds have an equally pathetic chance of winning.



GG