The Premium Bonds prize draw takes place at the start of each month
NS&I has clarified the rules around Premium Bonds(Image: Getty)
NS&I has clarified the rules around Premium Bonds and when your details may be changed. The provider confirmed it may change some of the details related to your prizes without telling you. The monthly prize draw for Premium Bonds takes place at the start of each month.
Savers can check whether they have any cash prizes to collect on the NS&I website or through the prize checker app. Each draw features many substantial cash prizes, including two top jackpots of £1million, alongside numerous other significant awards such as £100,000 and £50,000. Following each monthly draw, the provider publishes a list of high-value winners on its website.
This includes the region in which each big prize winner resides. However, the region attributed to you may change, even if you haven’t changed address.
Premium Bonds 100,000 rule
This can happen because every customer is allocated to either a town, local authority, county, Government Standard Region, or country. Your allocation is determined by the population size of your specific area.
Guidance published on the NS&I website states: “When a winner is assigned to a town with fewer than 100,000 holders assigned to it, then we use the following hierarchy until we find a level where that area has at least 100,000 Premium Bonds holders:
Level 1: Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) Town (like Blackpool)
Level 2: County or Local Authority (like Lancashire)
Level 3: Government Standard Region (like North West)
Level 4: Country (like England).”
This results in an odd situation where, looking at the big winners for the January draw, there is a region both for ‘Inner London’ and ‘Outer London’, as well as another simply named ‘London’. Specific local authorities within London have their own designated regions, such as ‘Wandsworth’, ‘Barnet’ and ‘Bromley’.
When it comes to other urban areas, there’s a region for ‘Bristol’ and another for ‘Bristol City Of’. There’s also a region for ‘Lancashire’ but also one for ‘Preston’, a city located within Lancashire.
‘We do not notify customers’
An NS&I spokesperson clarified the policy, stating: “The 100,000 threshold is used for public reporting and transparency purposes. It has no bearing on a customer’s chances of winning, as every £1 Bond has an equal chance of winning any prize regardless of where the holder lives.”
This 100,000 customer threshold also prompts questions about whether a customer’s assigned region can shift as the population in their area changes. The spokesperson explained: “The number of Premium Bonds holders in any given area will naturally fluctuate over time as customers buy and cash in Premium Bonds.
“NS&I does not notify customers of any changes to how their area is categorised, as this information does not affect their account or odds in any way.” Currently, the prize fund rate for Premium Bonds stands at 3.6 percent, following several reductions last year.
The odds of any £1 Bond entering the monthly draw being matched with a prize currently stand at 22,000 to one.
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