4 hours Ago By Luke Alsford
One very lucky Brit defied 1 in 620,000,000 odds. (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)It is not every day £100 can make you £1,000,000, but that is exactly what happened to one Premium Bonds saver.The new millionaire, from Cleveland in Yorkshire, purchased their winning bond two years ago in May 2023.
NS&I Premium Bonds are a savings account, where the interest paid is decided by a random monthly prize draw.NS&I dishes out £1,000,000 to two bond holders every month, with other cash prizes ranging from £25 to £100,000.A £17 bond hold took home £1,000,000 in 2004 (Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)This month’s winner from £100 defied odds as small as 1 in 620,000,000 to take home the largest jackpot.
It is the second smallest holding ever to win the top NS&I prize.In top spot is a £17 bond holder who became a millionaire in 2004, 45 years after first purchasing the bond in 1959.The other March 2025 millionaire had a £35,000 worth of bonds and came from Cumbria.
Another ultra-lucky winner bagged £100,000 with a holding of just £14, which they purchased over 48 years ago.There were 82 other £100,000 prizes in this months draw.You need your holder number or NS&I number to check your winnings (Picture: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)How do I check if I’ve won?If you know your bond number you can check your winnings with NS&I’s Premium Bonds Prize Checker.
There you can see a full list of the monthly winners from £5,000 all the way up until the two millionaires.You can also use your NS&I number to find your winnings, but only through their prize checker app.If you are lucky enough to have won, you should see the money in your account within the first seven working days of the month.
If you’re waiting for a winning cheque, that can take until the end of the month to arrive by post.Those prize cheques expire after 3 months, so you will have to ask for a replacement if yours does expire.How much money can I make with Premium Bonds?All Premium Bonds have a 22,000 to 1 chance of winning, however the prize rate is to drop from next month.
Martin Lewis has weighed in one premium bonds (Picture: Getty/shutterstock)The Premium Bonds prize fund rate, which is the average return a saver would make in a year, is currently at 4 percent.However NS&I announced last month the rate will be cut to 3.8% and the number of prizes available will be reduced.
The number of £100,000 prizes is expected to drop from 82 in February to 78 in April. There will still only be two winners of £1million, but the amount of £25 prizes will increase from 1,807,915 to an estimated 2,170,903 in April.In a post on X in December 2024, personal finance guru Martin Lewis, wrote: ‘Why do so many people give children Premium Bonds? Premium Bonds are only a decent bet if you’ve a big whack in, say £10,000+ and you pay tax on savings interest.
‘Most kids have/do neither. With £1,000 in over a year with typical (median average) luck you’ll win nothing.’However big winners have said they can take home far more than what they would expect with interest rates.
The likelihood you’ll take home one of the two top monthly prizes of £1 million is around 1 in 60 billion per bond. This is more unlikely than nabbing the National Lottery jackpot, which has odds of roughly 45 million to 1.Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.
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