Premium Bond Winner ?

Dizzycap

Same old absolutely NOWT here........I've cashed in and then repurchased a new chunk of new bond numbers. 

No point keeping bond numbers that have only won £50 in the last 3 years....

I know I'm still going to win NOWT............

eskbanker

Dizzycap said:

Same old absolutely NOWT here........I've cashed in and then repurchased a new chunk of new bond numbers. 

No point keeping bond numbers that have only won £50 in the last 3 years....

I know I'm still going to win NOWT............

And of course there's no point in changing them if you believe that makes any difference to the odds of winning, other than lowering them temporarily while you sit out a month.

Magnolia

2 x £100 and 1 x £25 for me on £48k holding -  that's  £1,800 for the year from January.

PixelPound

eskbanker said:

Dizzycap said:

Same old absolutely NOWT here........I've cashed in and then repurchased a new chunk of new bond numbers. 

No point keeping bond numbers that have only won £50 in the last 3 years....

I know I'm still going to win NOWT............

And of course there's no point in changing them if you believe that makes any difference to the odds of winning, other than lowering them temporarily while you sit out a month.

Yet some people think it makes a change. Newer bonds come up purely because there are more newer bonds

Kim_13

I do think that longer blocks win more often, so selling up odds and ends and combining them would be the only change that I would make.

Few bonds win more than once, but I’m not aware of being able to sell up individual bonds. If someone needed some funds, it would perhaps make sense to start with a winning bond and sell from there.

eskbanker

Kim_13 said:

I do think that longer blocks win more often, so selling up odds and ends and combining them would be the only change that I would make.

Longer blocks do win more than shorter ones, but only in direct proportion to the number of bonds in each, i.e. a block of 100 bonds has exactly the same odds of winning as a ten blocks of ten bonds each, or a hundred individual ones for that matter.

Kim_13 said:

Few bonds win more than once, but I’m not aware of being able to sell up individual bonds. If someone needed some funds, it would perhaps make sense to start with a winning bond and sell from there.

Again, a bond that's just won has exactly the same odds of a win in the next draw(s) as a bond that hasn't....

Bravepants

Kim_13 said:

I do think that longer blocks win more often, so selling up odds and ends and combining them would be the only change that I would make.

Few bonds win more than once, but I’m not aware of being able to sell up individual bonds. If someone needed some funds, it would perhaps make sense to start with a winning bond and sell from there.

The odds of winning one prize, in other words one bond winning, is 21000 to 1. Therefore the probability of a block of 100 bonds being the block that contains the winning bond (which is really what you are saying) is 210 to 1; or 21000 divided by 100. 

So yes longer blocks have higher probability of being the winning block, but the probability of a single bond winning is still 21000 to 1. It's individual bonds that matter, not blocks.  

ukbren

I only have a relatively small holding (around £7k) but I've had some surprising little wins.  A couple in particular prove what can happen with small blocks...

Off a £100 block
I won £50, which was re-invested
Two months later, the £50 "prize win" won another £100

I've also won £50 off a £25 block.

Human nature is a funny thing but I can see that with a scattergun effect, you might be led to thinking a large contiguous block would reap better rewards than many smaller ones with the same total value (because the 'pellets' could hit in the gaps?).

If you put the same theory into playing the lottery, would you choose 6 consecutive numbers?  I would hazard "no".  Same odds as any other combination, opposite psychological effect.

Nebulous2

ukbren said:

I only have a relatively small holding (around £7k) but I've had some surprising little wins.  A couple in particular prove what can happen with small blocks...

Off a £100 block
I won £50, which was re-invested
Two months later, the £50 "prize win" won another £100

I've also won £50 off a £25 block.

Human nature is a funny thing but I can see that with a scattergun effect, you might be led to thinking a large contiguous block would reap better rewards than many smaller ones with the same total value (because the 'pellets' could hit in the gaps?).

If you put the same theory into playing the lottery, would you choose 6 consecutive numbers?  I would hazard "no".  Same odds as any other combination, opposite psychological effect.

Same odds of winning, but likely to be a much smaller win. I remember reading that something like 10,000 people choose 1,2,3,4,5,6 every week. I don't 'pay' the lottery, but if I did and won I'd be slightly annoyed at sharing it with 10,000 others. 

Kim_13

With the lottery though, you are trying to get at least three “hits” (game dependent of course), so the odds of them being close together would be quite small. With Premium Bonds it feels like a different approach in that you are trying to maximise your chances of getting at least one hit to avoid a blank, so covering a large area would tend to do that.

Having looked again at my holding, I do have a block of similar length to that that my tiny blocks would be if I sold up and combined them. They have won roughly similarly.