Premium bond winners in March 2024 - what do the odds of winning really mean?
Two lucky premium bond holders have each won £1m in March's National Savings & Investments (NS&I) prize draw.
The jackpot winners are from West Sussex and Hampshire, while 86 other winners were picked for the next-best prize of £100,000.
This month, after 18 months of rises, the prize fund rate has been cut from 4.65% to 4.4%. While the odds of winning are still 21,000:1, how lucky do you have to be to win anything?
As well as revealing this month's winning premium bond numbers, Which? takes a closer look at your chances of bagging a prize and explains why people are willing to have a flutter, despite the odds.
March 2024 premium bond winners
The first winning bond (513VQ281226) was bought by a lucky winner living in West Sussex and is part of a total holding of £50,000. The winning bond was bought in September 2022.
The second winner, from Hampshire, bought their bond (441BK932039) in February 2021. They also have a total holding of £50,000.
- Find out more: should I get premium bonds?
How many winners were drawn in March?
There were 5,869,452 premium bond prizes paid out in the March draw. Of these, 5,793,946 were worth £100 or less.
In total, this month's prizes were worth £451,947,650.
| Value of prize | Number of prizes |
|---|---|
| £1,000,000 | 2 |
£100,000 | 86 |
| £50,000 | 174 |
£25,000 | 345 |
| £10,000 | 863 |
| £5,000 | 1,728 |
£1,000 | 18,077 |
Source: NS&I
- Find out more: premium bonds – are they worth it?
What do the odds really mean?
After boosting the premium bond prize fund rate an impressive five times in 2023, from March's draw, the rate dropped from 4.65% to 4.4%.
Although the total value and number of prizes has gone down as a result, the odds of each £1 premium bond number winning a prize remains the same at 21,000:1. NS&I says that's due to an increase in the number of £25 prizes and a decrease in the number of high-value prizes, excluding the two £1 million jackpots.
But to understand what this really means for premium bond holders, it's important to explain what is meant by 'odds'.
In the case of premium bonds, 21,000:1 indicates that for every 21,000 attempts, one is expected to succeed - assuming each attempt is independent of the other. In short, your chances are pretty slim and in an average month a typical bond holder is likely to win nothing at all.
It's not as unlikely as winning the UK's national lottery (Lotto) jackpot, however. The odds of matching all six numbers drawn are currently 45,057,474:1. Although the odds of winning any prize on the Lotto are 9.3:1.
To put things further into perspective, you're more likely to find a four-leaf clover - with odds at 10,000:1 - than winning a premium bond prize.
Of course, buying premium bonds is very different to gambling. NS&I is backed by the Treasury and, while there is no guarantee of returns on your investment, your money is 100% safe.
Why do people bother?
With savings rates still running high, why do people invest in a product that offers little promise of growth? For many people, the dream of becoming a millionaire and the allure of 'what if' is a powerful hook.
According to Ivo Vlaev, professor of behavioural science at Warwick University, it all comes down to the human habit of misinterpreting or overestimating low probabilities when it comes to rare events.
He explains this is partly due to something called the 'availability heuristic' - our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly and easily when making decisions about the future. For instance, because lottery winners are highly publicised, the event seems more common than it truly is and a person might therefore think, 'If they can win, so can I', despite the extremely low odds.
'Events with small probabilities and large rewards can be overly enticing, leading to decisions that, from a purely mathematical perspective, might not make sense,' claims Vlaev. 'This is often seen in lottery participation, where the excitement and dream of winning big overshadow the exceedingly low odds of such an outcome.'
- Find out more: different types of savings accounts explained
Are there ways to improve the odds of winning?
The only sure-fire way of increasing your chances of winning is to buy more bonds. Every number has a separate and equal chance each month of winning a prize, but the more bonds you buy, the better your chances of winning.
Some people have speculated that having a newer bond will increase your luck. But while it's true that more recent bonds win more often, that's because there are more of these in circulation.
For example, sales soared after the top prize was increased to £1m in 1994, and low interest rates have led to more people investing their money in premium bonds instead of other savings products. A boost to the prize fund rate twice during 2022 may have also enticed people to buy more premium bonds.
Another factor to consider is that numbers that have been in the draw for several years are more likely to have been chosen as jackpot winners - that's because they've been entered into more draws than more recently purchased bonds.
