Premium bonds

My husband and I both hold the maximum, this month he won nothing and I £750 !!

Do you have to hold a lot of PBonds to win? We have never had much spare income and my DH has a single premium bond he was sent in a birthday card from an auntie about 70 years ago. He has never won a penny. Exuse naivety, PB's have not been a part of our lives!

My husband and I each hold the maximum, this month he won nothing and I £750 !

Just bought some premium bonds for my Granddaughter online. Haven’t received an email confirmation! Is this normal?

We used to have the maximum but withdrew most of it a couple of months ago. We left only £5,000 each. This month I actually still won - £50. Unexpected but very welcome.

yogitree

Do you have to hold a lot of PBonds to win? We have never had much spare income and my DH has a single premium bond he was sent in a birthday card from an auntie about 70 years ago. He has never won a penny. Exuse naivety, PB's have not been a part of our lives!

Moneysavingexpert Martin Lewis explains here:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/premium-bonds/

The video is old, made when interest rates were very low, but the same principles apply.

He explains that if you hold only £1,000 of bonds you are unlikely to win anything.

They are a poor investment for anyone unless they have better than median luck.

If a couple put £100,000 in a savings account yielding 4.5%, even if they had used up all their *savings tax breaks and both had the top marginal tax rate of 45%, they’d still net over £200 every month guaranteed so over £2,400 for the year.

*ISAs, the Starting Rate for Savings, Personal Savings Allowance

A couple paying only 20% tax who had used all their tax breaks would net £300 a month or £3,600 a year.

The chance of any bond winning a million pounds is 2.7 billion to one - the populations of China and India combined.

The chance of any bond winning a £100,000 is over 70.5 million to one - more than that population of the UK.

In theory, the more bonds you have, the more chance you have of winning something but for 135,637,982,946 (135.6 billion) bonds each month it is virtually certain they will win absolutely nothing.

I have full amount and won £125 this month. I did an experiement in 2024, must have been bored one day. I printed my full holdings off and then marked which of the bonds had any winnings over the last five years. All the winners were contained in a batch of £1000 or higher - none of the lower under £1000 had won. The largest batch had most wins. So in the years where I had been reinvesting and winning £25 - £100, none of those had won anything! Having read somewhere the odds increase with higher batches, I started to cash in the smaller individual holdings and immediately buy back in larger denominations, strangely (or not), I started to win more - just saying? I still have a way to go because it is time consuming and I think now, you can't pick which bond to sell, they just take the oldest (I haven't looked lately that might have changed back again) - for me now that would mean removing a couple of larger ones to filter out some smaller ones, so I'm a bit undecided. If a bit cynical or curious like me, and you hold lots of smaller batches, I do at least recommend the 'check' of which bonds have won. Good luck in 2026 everyone:-)

From the NS&I site for financial advisers:

It’s a popular myth that holding Premium Bonds in a sequence can improve your chances of winning, but this simply isn’t true. The machine we use to generate the numbers for each prize draw—ERNIE—generates numbers completely at random, which are then matched to our database of eligible Bonds to determine the winners. Since no Bonds are actually entered into ERNIE, it doesn’t ‘know’ anything about the Bonds themselves, such as whether the Bond number is part of a sequence of numbers or not. The only thing that can increase your chances of winning is holding more Premium Bonds – but holding them in sequence won’t make any difference.

What you have described is coincidence.

I didn’t win this month. However, I have been lucky in the past year so no complaints

I haven't had anything for about a year. But I don't have the maximum amount, only £10K. ("only"! Ha ha!) But when I first took them out, maybe 20 years ago, I had something back most months - £25 or very occasionally £50. At the time it was providing a better interest rate than most savings schemes. Now I'm not sure it's really worth havng.

Well I've had 1 premium bond since childhood and as far as I know I've never won a penny!

I wonder why people still bother with premium bonds when the payouts rarely match a good savings interest rate. Even better are isa's or just high interest savings accounts.
To me they're only worthwhile if you're wealthy and have high taxes.

So many people say that the bonds would do better elsewhere but where is the fun in that? I love the possibility of a big win (I know two people who have won £5,000 and £10,000 so it does happen). It's like putting money on a horse but knowing your stake is safe! (This month win for me: £100)

Dreadwitch

I wonder why people still bother with premium bonds when the payouts rarely match a good savings interest rate. Even better are isa's or just high interest savings accounts.
To me they're only worthwhile if you're wealthy and have high taxes.

See my other post - an Isa is no fun!

I can vouch for the lower amounts being useless. I’ve had my humble amount since I was a child. I’ve only ever had one win (£90) back in the early 1990’s.

Paperbackwriter

So many people say that the bonds would do better elsewhere but where is the fun in that? I love the possibility of a big win (I know two people who have won £5,000 and £10,000 so it does happen). It's like putting money on a horse but knowing your stake is safe! (This month win for me: £100)

Yes, it does happen; there's always the possibility of an even bigger win.

The best thing to do is keep an eye on winnings and work out the annual return to see how it compares to a cash ISA. The interest rate on cash ISAs is not high at the moment and stocks & shares ISAs are risky, especially when you get older.

roxie39

I haven't had anything for about a year. But I don't have the maximum amount, only £10K. ("only"! Ha ha!) But when I first took them out, maybe 20 years ago, I had something back most months - £25 or very occasionally £50. At the time it was providing a better interest rate than most savings schemes. Now I'm not sure it's really worth havng.

The return on Premium Bonds is at present 3.6% but, of course, some may gain more, others less, some an amount comparable to an ISA.

A safe gamble as you can request your original investment back.

We won nothing this month but a friend won £150

My dad got £350, my mum got £25 and I got zero, nephew got zero too. All max holders.

My four premium bonds date to the 1950's... thank you Granny. I won £25 in 1967 ... ever hopeful!

Paperbackwriter

So many people say that the bonds would do better elsewhere but where is the fun in that? I love the possibility of a big win (I know two people who have won £5,000 and £10,000 so it does happen). It's like putting money on a horse but knowing your stake is safe! (This month win for me: £100)

Absolutely this, I love the thrill every month too. I have not heard as yet whether I have had a win this month never check until I receive the email.

Someone in my family won £25000 last year.

Lovelock - I also won ££175 this month but my friend won £200 - she ALWAYS gets more than me! my dh won a big prize of £50,000 once, which enabled us to get our grand daughter on the property ladder, I keep my fingers crossed!

Kate1949

Someone in my family won £25000 last year.

Do they have maximum holdings?

I’ve had some in my name but taken out before I was born in 1965, never had a penny.