One of this month’s Premium Bond savers scooped the million-pound jackpot just two months after buying the Bond.
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) Premium Bonds prizes were drawn for January at the start of the week, awarding more than 5.8 million prizes from a total prize fund of more than £429million.
Of the prizes, two £1million payments are up for grabs, and one saver got particularly lucky with a Bond purchased fairly recently.
The Gloucestershire jackpot winner bought the £1million Bond, 601RW421962, in November 2024, making them the 9th jackpot millionaire from their area. They hold £350,000 in Premium Bonds and their winning number was drawn second.
The first number drawn, held by a Bond holder in Liverpool, was 492XB861312. The winner has a holding of £37,025 in Premium Bonds and purchased their winning number in March 2022. They become the third £1million jackpot winner from their area.
Andrew Westhead, NS&I Retail Director, said: “We’re delighted to kick off 2025 by creating our first Premium Bonds millionaires of the year in Liverpool and Gloucestershire.”
What are Premium Bonds?
Premium Bonds are a savings account offered by NS&I, one of the largest savings institutions in the UK backed by the Treasury.
The accounts don’t earn interest traditionally and consistently. Instead, each bond is entered into a monthly randomly generated prize draw. Between £25 and £50,000 can be invested in the account overall, and prizes of up to £1million can be won every month.
NS&I says the more bonds a person has, the higher their chance of winning a prize.
The annual prize fund rate for Premium Bonds in January dropped to was 4% from 4.15%, and the odds of any single £1 Bond number winning a prize are 22,000 to 1.
A total of 5,851,240 prizes worth £429,090,875 will be paid out in January’s draw. These prizes are drawn from a pool of 128,727,262,710 eligible Bond numbers.
Premium Bonds prize checker
Premium Bonds holders can easily see if they’ve won a prize in January’s draw by checking the NS&I website, the prize checker app, or simply asking Alexa.
To check on the NS&I website, customers will need their Premium Bonds holder’s number, while for the prize checker app, they’ll need their NS&I number or holder’s number. People can also check for any unclaimed prizes owed to them.
There are currently 2,498,733 unclaimed prizes worth £92,343,925 waiting to be claimed.
It should be noted that investing in Premium Bonds does not always guarantee prizes.
People can go years without winning anything at all, which some money experts argue makes traditional interest-earning savings accounts more lucrative.
Speaking previously on his BBC 5Live podcast, the Martin Lewis Podcast, Martin Lewis said: “Most people should be looking at putting money in cash ISAs first because, with typical luck, you will win substantially more in a top one-year fix than you would in Premium Bonds and you’d see them win more in an easy access cash ISA.
“The thing about Premium Bonds is people live the dream in the hope that they’re going to be the person who wins the £1million and virtually nobody will – but that’s why it’s appealing. People always say things like ‘I win £25 every month’, and in my cynical head I go ‘yeah but if you put the same amount of money in the top cash ISA, you get a guaranteed win of £40 every month’.”
Mr Lewis added: “They’re not awful, I’m just about ‘what’s the best?’, and for me, they’re not the best.”
