Premium Bond prizes

Apricot

I think your making a conspiracy theory up here.

I have won the odd £25 / £50 Premium Bond but I don't hold them in the knowledge I will necessarily win, do you honestly think you can win every month or so.

I think your best bet would be to cash them in and 'invest' elsewhere.

Premium Bonds are no more than a gamble, the same as doing the Lottery.

DH has one from the 1960's [worth a fiver] it's never come up, but we don't grumble [much] about it.

I won £25 x3 this month but I rarely win any more.

I won £50 in the entire 64 years of having Premium Bonds, bought for me at birth. It arrived at a time when money was very short and absentdaughter's third birthday was approaching, so it was very welcome. As the "draw" is computer generated, I think it very unlikely that it is fixed – and what would really be the point. Premium Bonds are not a good investment – not is the lottery – as the chances of winning a large prize are very remote.

Unless you have the full whack - is it £30,000? - in a block, I think the chances of winning are not great.

It's because interest rates are so low that the prizes are not good. They will state categorically on the site what the interest rate is, which numbers win every month, so it has to be legitimate and open to scrutiny.

Giving it to his banker chums

You can find out how much you are likely to win with the value of the bonds you hold here. You enter your holding and over how many years and out pops an answer :-
www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-bonds-calculator/

With £2,000 in Premium Bonds, if you have average luck
you would expect to win roughly £25 over 1 year. Not a very good rate of interest!

With £30,000 in Premium Bonds, if you have average luck
you would expect to win roughly £350 over 1 year, a bit over 1% return on your investment.

Yes, that'll be it, apricot - DH commandeering Premium Bond prizes to prop up the ailing economy...

(or to buy arms, or give to his cronies etc. etc.)

Oops! I meant DC not DH - although of course anything's possible in the conspiracy theory world!

Iv just won £50 big

rosequartz it is now £40,000. George Osborne increased the amount to start around September 2014 and each month now there are 2 millionaire winners. As somebody mentioned, the odds are stacked re winning the lower numbers.

It isn't quite like doing the lottery because you always keep your original money. We put a chunk in recently and have won quite a lot of £25 prizes. It may not be a brilliant investment but at least you can't lose it, unlike some investments we've had, and there is always that chance of a big win.

The money we have won on PBs is far far far in excess of the interest we were receiving from the Bank. We only have a couple of 1000s in PBs. Its nice to "hope" each month too.

My friend seems to win loads (she's had £500 more than once) - but I suspect she has loads invested in them. My Granddad bought us all one bond each when they first came out - and I have never won!!!!!

I have a large block of these which I have had for over 5 years. The return has been rubbish. I bought them when I retired as the interest on savings was so low. I had high hopes for them but have had next to nothing. Once when I was paying a £25 cheque from them into the bank, the bank teller said to me 'do you know I have worked here for years and I have never seen a cheque for more than £25 being paid in'. Some months I have had £50 or £75 - two or three £25 wins. I live in hope

Apricot they should be seen as a gamble and not as an investment.
I've never won anything either.

There is an interesting article on this website www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-bonds
It says the prize money fluctuates and is currently 1.35 % of holdings given average luck. As some savings accounts yield much less than this, it seems a reasonable deal with a bit of gamble thrown in.
We put quite a big chunk of money in a few years ago and have never won more than the odd £25. Probably not even the 1.35% we might hope to get.

I've had several small wins over the years. I find it hard to believe that Premium Bonds are actually crooked. I think it's more to do with the recession and very low interest rates on savings, so people feel they prefer these Bonds instead. Hence, more Bonds held therefore reduces our chances of winning something.

I am about to receive a legacy of about £25,000 and plan to put it in premium bonds. The money we have in savings is earning peanuts (we don't go for high risk) so I thought I might just go for a gamble this time and enjoy the suspense each month!

We had premium bonds for ages and won nigh on zilch.

Cashed them in and spent the money!

Whey-hey !

I'm quite lucky at winning small sums regularly from the PBs but have always had an intuition that I will have a big win one day. I do win a lot of raffles but then I always buy a lot of tickets!

I seem to receive more from PBs than I do in interest on some of my bank accounts. I bought them instead of doing the lottery and you don't lose your initial stake.
A few years ago someone in our area won a million and they only had a £1 bond, must have had it since the 50s or 60s because after that the minimum amount of investment was £100.

I have a substantial number of bonds and win £25 - possibly 8 months out of 12. So I have a lot of blocks of 25 in my portfolio. But I've noticed that the winning bond comes almost always from the larger blocks I bought 20 odd years ago - rarely from the blocks of 25 which I've won. Don't get that.

Somebody told me that you should cash the lot and then re-buy them in large blocks?