Any other Premium Bonds winners today?

[Luckystreak]

Name changed as regular poster.

Usually win between £100 and £250 per month in Premium Bonds with nearly full holdings.

Just checked January's numbers and we've won £1000!

Anyone else?

AIBU to think they're a good investment?!

Nothing won here in years but I've just realised that you all have far greater holdings than me!

I won £150 this month. A good start to the year!

I have £49,000 in there and won £150 this month, won every month this year bar one. I like the chance of Winning Big! so suits me for now keeping them in there.

First year I won £175, then nothing for 15 months, then £50 then nothing for 12 months. My partner has the same amount of bonds and wins hundreds every month. That's why I can't see how it can be random if the same person wins every month.

I never won anything. My dc has won 3 small wins last year. Here's hoping this year will be better.

£14k held for four months. Won £300 yesterday

I won £100 in December, couldn't believe it! Normally win a few £25's a year.

This is my third month of dabbling in PBs and I won nothing yesterday, but won £50
last month, so not bad so far.

I don’t think of PBs in even a tiny way as investing. To me it’s a kind of gambling, but you get to keep your stake.

Congratulations on your win, OP 🎉

I have a few which I purchased maybe the year before last. I don't check because they will let me know if I win and pay the money into my bank account. I try not to think about them :-), but I don't have that many so am not worried about them being a bad investment. I wouldn't buy loads of them.

We had £2000 of bonds in for just under a year and didn’t win anything, we had to take the money out to cover my mat leave so nothing in there at the mo.

In April last year I had just over £3,000, barely won anything, occasional £25. Then I won £625 in one go, £500, £100 and £25!

I was beyond thrilled with that. I now have almost the full amount and won £200 this month which is a good start to the year but I have a feeling that win in April might well be the most I will ever win in the future despite having so many bonds now.

Still, I do like the excitement of looking forward each month to whether I get anything or not.😁

It's definitely gambling.

If you have a full holding, you could easily get 5% interest on that. So £2,500 a year interest (could all be tax free as well if you'd built up in ISAs over 3 years).

So effectively you'd be spending £2,500 on lottery tickets in the hope you'd get more than £2,500 in prizes.

I wonder what the difference would be between holding the premium bonds and putting it in an ISA, and actually spending all the interest on lottery tickets?

Well, this is what MSE says for the answer to my question!

Your chance of winning the jackpot per ticket on the National Lottery is one in 45 million in a week, far outstripping the one in more than 60 BILLION chance of becoming a millionaire through one single Premium Bond in a month.

But then the risk with the Lottery is that the jackpot is dependent on the overall prize fund and can be shared, plus you lose your stake.

It’s a ridiculous comparison because nobody has one premium bond.

So effectively you'd be spending £2,500 on lottery tickets in the hope you'd get more than £2,500 in prizes.

No, you’ve completely misunderstood.

But you lose your stake here too - the stake is the interest you could have got otherwise.

Not quite comparable in the "one Premium bond" scenario as your stake in that case would be say 5% of £1 for 12 entries.

Lotto is £2 stake for one shot at a 1 in 45 million jackpot (of variable size)
For a comparable stake from lost PB interest you'd need 40 bonds, times 12 as a year's 5% interest is 12 draws.
You'd get 560 shots at a 1 in 60 billion jackpot of fixed size.
Lotto is still more likely but not hugely so.

No.

What I'm saying is, you can choose to put £50k in premium bonds. Interest earned =0. But, potentially prizes. So you might end up with £50k at the end of the year, you might end up with £1050000 ( or even more).

Alternative - put £50k in a 5% interest account. Use the £2.5k interest to buy lottery tickets. So you might end up with £50k at the end of the year, you might end up with £50k plus jackpot, or any of the smaller wins.

You wouldn’t get £2.5K interest, because you’d pay some tax. That’s one reason why PBs appeal to so many - I have no wish to pay anymore tax than I already do.

Explained in PP that this would be if you had built up to £50k in an ISA.

But the maximum you can put into an ISA is £20K.

ooh I didn't get an email but checked and I won £50 this month! That's £250 in 12 months on a holding of £4500 so not a bad return (5.5%)

This is good to know! I know it's all down to blind luck in the end, but I hold £5,000 (only had them for a couple of months) and was wondering if I was extremely unlikely to win anything from them.