1st August 2017

Luck be a lady for August’s Premium Bonds jackpot winners

Two lucky ladies are each getting £1 million to kick off their summer holidays following their Premium Bonds numbers winning the jackpot this month.

The women, from Bristol and Leicestershire, become the 367^th and 368^th winners of the £1 million jackpot since it was launched in 1994.

Leicestershire’s winner is the fourth from the county in the past two years, and the eighth overall, with Agent Million’s most recent trip there in March 2016.

Agent Million has also made eight trips to Bristol. The last visit there was in November 2016, when ERNIE celebrated making the 350^th Premium Bonds millionaire. 

The Bristol-based winner bought her winning Bond in February 2010 (winning Bond number: 164QV715020) as part of a £5,000 purchase and a £30,925 total holding.

The winner from Leicestershire also bought her lucky Bond as part of a £5,000 purchase (winning Bond number: 87DH369559), but did so at the start of the millennium in January 2000. She has the current maximum holding of £50,000 invested in Premium Bonds.

Jill Waters, Retail Director at NS&I, said: “What fantastic news for the two women who have won the jackpot this month. 

“Agent Million visits Bristol for the second time within a year having delivered ERNIE’s 350^th jackpot win in November 2016, while the trip to Leicestershire is slightly more familiar territory after three Premium Bonds millionaires were made there last year.

“Although the Leicestershire winner’s Bonds might not be considered ‘old’ given that they were bought in 2000, she has actually held them for nearly a third of the time that Premium Bonds have been on sale, showing that every individual Bond has the same chance of winning in the monthly draw as any other.”

The old ones are the best

Since the first Premium Bonds millionaire won in April 1994, only five previous jackpot winners have held their winning Bond for longer than this month’s winner from Leicestershire, and one other had held their winning Bond for the same length of time.

The longest-held jackpot-winning Premium Bonds:

And since the first Premium Bonds draw in 1957, there have been more than 376 million prizes paid out, totalling £17.6 billion.

Of these, over 1.3 million Premium Bond prizes remain unclaimed, worth more than £56 million.

Jill Waters continued: “We know that sometimes it’s easy to lose track of paperwork or lose touch with your investments if you’ve not interacted with them for a while. 

“However, with this month’s millionaire having won after holding her Bonds for so long, there’s every reason to go online and discover if you are owed one of the unclaimed prizes.”

In Bristol, there are 14 prizes worth £1,000 yet to be claimed, with a total of 15,611 prizes worth £601,200 still to be paid out. Five of the top10 oldest unclaimed prizes in the region were won in the month of August, the oldest being from August 1964.  

In Leicestershire, £574,400 is waiting to be claimed from 15,381 prizes. There are six prizes worth £1,000, while the oldest also dates back to August 1964 – a £25 win for the lucky Bond holder.

Go online: quicker, easier, more interest

In another similarity between the two regions, each has just over 20,000 customers registered to receive their prizes by BACS, meaning that customers whose Bonds win prizes can have their winnings paid directly into their bank accounts.

As well as being a much quicker way of receiving their money, customers will also reduce the chances of their future prizes going unclaimed. So far, more than 1.4 million people have registered to receive their prizes by BACS.

Customers can register to manage their Premium Bonds alongside other NS&I products at www.nsandi.com. 

To find out if you’re a winner this month, or to see your historic Premium Bonds wins, download the free Prize Checker app from the App Store or from Google Play.

In August, there were a total of 2,327,895 prizes worth £66,926,950 paid out to Premium Bonds customers. There were a total of 69,836,829,359 eligible Bonds for this month’s draw.

Prize and value breakdown in August 2017

Investments