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Premium Bonds

Discussing offers, rates and deals on suppliers
swill453
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Re: Premium Bonds

#469922

Postby swill453 » January 3rd, 2022, 1:08 pm

pje16 wrote:The first 3 days of this year are a weekend and a bank holiday

That happens on average 3 years in every 7.

Scott.

Bouleversee
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Re: Premium Bonds

#469927

Postby Bouleversee » January 3rd, 2022, 1:49 pm

That's what it's now showing on mine as well, whereas when I looked earlier today it showed two prizes and no reference to the 2 days or whatever to wait which usually comes up if one tries too soon. Sorry about that. Hoping the real results will be an improvement!

Mike88
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Re: Premium Bonds

#469969

Postby Mike88 » January 3rd, 2022, 4:08 pm

Bouleversee wrote:That's what it's now showing on mine as well, whereas when I looked earlier today it showed two prizes and no reference to the 2 days or whatever to wait which usually comes up if one tries too soon. Sorry about that. Hoping the real results will be an improvement!


I spent many months receiving nothing on a £50k investment. Now I think two awards is disappointing. Such is life as a Premium Bond investor.


yorkshirelad1
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470206

Postby yorkshirelad1 » January 4th, 2022, 3:20 pm

Having an idle moment, and just for the hell of it, I did a quick assessment by year of the Jan 2022 prize listing from lovemoney:



so that would seem to suggest that a large number of the existing premium bond holdings are dated after 2014, or there are simply more of them, or more recent bonds seem to get a better chance of winnings. In fairness, it's a small sample (Jan 2022 winnings) and it was an idle moment of frivolity :-)

XFool
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470210

Postby XFool » January 4th, 2022, 3:31 pm

yorkshirelad1 wrote:Having an idle moment, and just for the hell of it, I did a quick assessment by year of the Jan 2022 prize listing from lovemoney:

I am unsure what is been shown in the table, "Jan 2022 prize listing" ? Year winning bond purchased?

yorkshirelad1 wrote:so that would seem to suggest that a large number of the existing premium bond holdings are dated after 2014, or there are simply more of them, or more recent bonds seem to get a better chance of winnings. In fairness, it's a small sample (Jan 2022 winnings) and it was an idle moment of frivolity :-)

It is well known that most Premium Bonds are "newer" (for more than one reason), so...?

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470214

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 3:39 pm

yorkshirelad1 wrote:a large number of the existing premium bond holdings are dated after 2014, or there are simply more of them, or more recent bonds seem to get a better chance of winnings.

A bit of each I would guess. It would not shock me if Ernie's randomness was not entirely random and skewed towards recent buyers.

Anecdotal as all of this is of course, I have held a dozen or so bonds since I was bought them as a young child. I think I've had them for 65 years now.

I won once in the late 1950s and once in the early to mid 1960s. 25 quid each time, which was a lot back then especially for a kid on (as I recall) 5p a week in pocket money.

But nothing since. Although that said they probably have not had a current address for me for the last 30 years.

pje16
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470215

Postby pje16 » January 4th, 2022, 3:42 pm

Lootman wrote:I won once in the late 1950s and once in the early to mid 1960s. 25 quid each time, which was a lot back then especially for a kid on (as I recall) 5p a week in pocket money.

25 good old pounds vs a shilling
you must have been very popular :lol:

Lootman
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470219

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 3:47 pm

pje16 wrote:
Lootman wrote:I won once in the late 1950s and once in the early to mid 1960s. 25 quid each time, which was a lot back then especially for a kid on (as I recall) 5p a week in pocket money.

25 good old pounds vs a shilling
you must have been very popular :lol:

I can't remember. I recall buying a bike for 12 quid with the second one.

I also collected coins as a kid and no doubt some of it went on that. I still have that collection. One day I will get it valued and see how I did.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470224

Postby XFool » January 4th, 2022, 4:16 pm

Lootman wrote:
yorkshirelad1 wrote:a large number of the existing premium bond holdings are dated after 2014, or there are simply more of them, or more recent bonds seem to get a better chance of winnings.

A bit of each I would guess. It would not shock me if Ernie's randomness was not entirely random and skewed towards recent buyers.

Oh dear!

Not this sort of nonsense yet again?

It all regularly comes up in comment sections about PBs in newspapers: "It's all fixed", "it's a Ponzi scheme" (everything is a Ponzi scheme for some folks), "blocks of bonds win more often", "newer bonds win more - so sell your old ones and repurchase" etc.

If you think about it, that "newer bonds win more often" is about as surprising as the fact that "things always fall down" *

So here goes: There are two aspects - Fewer old Premium Bonds, More new Premium Bonds

Premium Bonds are held by individual persons and are non transferable.
Premium Bonds are ~70 years old
Humans are mortal and tend to live ~70 years
(I hope the conclusion is obvious)

People who purchase bonds can subsequently withdraw their cash and the bonds are cancelled - their PB numbers are not reissued.

Each Premium Bonds entered in the draw is and always been priced at £1 each. How much more do you think a 1950s £1 bought compared to a 2020s £1? I don't know either, but I'd guess around ~25 times. Coincidentally or not, the minimum purchase of bonds today is £25, in the 1950s it was £1. So you would expect people who purchase PBs today to be purchasing them at about 25x the rate as in the past, and that is before you come to anything else. For the same reasons the limit on holding bonds has been raised over time (I think the max was 1000 in the 1950s as opposed to 50,000 today).

People who have a large number of bonds have usually purchased them over time - perhaps as the limits have been raised - 'before' means earlier, just as 'after' means later. It's a time thing...

The last few years have seen a large influx of money to PBs. Why not? General interest rates on offer on cash have been so low that the return on PBs (particularly with large holdings) has been easily able to match banks. Plus, the return is tax free so PBs can act in addition to ISAs and the newish personal savings tax allowance for people with a lot of free cash savings. They are also risk free and you might win the jackpot! (But you won't)

Then we come on to the problems humans have with the concept of "random"... (Think I'll leave that)

No mysteries here! Well, apart from the mystery of why humans continue trying to see mysteries where there aren't any.


* Yes they do! Mainly because "down" is defined as the direction in which things fall...

pje16
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470225

Postby pje16 » January 4th, 2022, 4:20 pm

XFool wrote:(everything is a Ponzi scheme for some folks)

Only if they don't understand what it means
btw I'm not angry about this :D

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470226

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 4:21 pm

XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:
yorkshirelad1 wrote:a large number of the existing premium bond holdings are dated after 2014, or there are simply more of them, or more recent bonds seem to get a better chance of winnings.

A bit of each I would guess. It would not shock me if Ernie's randomness was not entirely random and skewed towards recent buyers.

Oh dear! Not this sort of nonsense yet again?

I did not say that it was rigged. Only that it would not shock me if it turned out that there were some tweaks to the randomness.

Since nobody can know the real truth I think people are allowed to make inferences based on logic, political outlook and their own experiences.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470239

Postby XFool » January 4th, 2022, 5:00 pm

Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:A bit of each I would guess. It would not shock me if Ernie's randomness was not entirely random and skewed towards recent buyers.

Oh dear! Not this sort of nonsense yet again?

I did not say that it was rigged. Only that it would not shock me if it turned out that there were some tweaks to the randomness.

Since nobody can know the real truth I think people are allowed to make inferences based on logic, political outlook and their own experiences.

I can't follow the "logic" there, can you explain? As for "experience", much the same. As for the effects of "political outlook": well, could be... :)

yorkshirelad1
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Re: Premium Bonds

#470253

Postby yorkshirelad1 » January 4th, 2022, 5:54 pm

XFool wrote:
yorkshirelad1 wrote:Having an idle moment, and just for the hell of it, I did a quick assessment by year of the Jan 2022 prize listing from lovemoney:

I am unsure what is been shown in the table, "Jan 2022 prize listing" ? Year winning bond purchased?

Apologies: it was a summary of the results listed by lovemoney at https://www.lovemoney.com/news/13635/premium-bonds-winners-have-i-won. Number of prizes for listed year of purchase.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470255

Postby XFool » January 4th, 2022, 6:00 pm

yorkshirelad1 wrote:
XFool wrote:
yorkshirelad1 wrote:Having an idle moment, and just for the hell of it, I did a quick assessment by year of the Jan 2022 prize listing from lovemoney:

I am unsure what is been shown in the table, "Jan 2022 prize listing" ? Year winning bond purchased?

Apologies: it was a summary of the results listed by lovemoney at https://www.lovemoney.com/news/13635/premium-bonds-winners-have-i-won. Number of prizes for listed year of purchase.

Thanks, yorkshirelad1. I had a look and the first sentence of the first post I saw in the Comment section seems to promise things running true to form in these matters!

Some of these comments are hilarious! However, the lack of even the most basic understanding is really worrying.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470257

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 6:11 pm

XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:Oh dear! Not this sort of nonsense yet again?

I did not say that it was rigged. Only that it would not shock me if it turned out that there were some tweaks to the randomness.

Since nobody can know the real truth I think people are allowed to make inferences based on logic, political outlook and their own experiences.

I can't follow the "logic" there, can you explain? As for "experience", much the same.

The logic is that nobody knows the truth as everything around ERNIE is shrouded in secrecy, presumably so people cannot hack it. Other than a handful of boffins in Bletchley, Bootle or Blackpool (do we even know where ERNIE is?) anway.

The experience was already cited.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470265

Postby XFool » January 4th, 2022, 6:36 pm

Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:I did not say that it was rigged. Only that it would not shock me if it turned out that there were some tweaks to the randomness.

Since nobody can know the real truth I think people are allowed to make inferences based on logic, political outlook and their own experiences.

I can't follow the "logic" there, can you explain? As for "experience", much the same.

The logic is that nobody knows the truth as everything around ERNIE is shrouded in secrecy, presumably so people cannot hack it.

Uh? Very little around ERNIE is "shrouded in secrecy", though the equipment itself has to be kept physically secure.

https://nsandi-corporate.com/media-resources/ernie
https://nsandi-corporate.com/news-research/news/nsi-unveils-new-ernie-simulator-answer-questions-about-premium-bonds-draw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond#ERNIE

Lootman wrote:Other than a handful of boffins in Bletchley, Bootle or Blackpool (do we even know where ERNIE is?) anway.

"boffins in Bletchley"? They are all long dead now...

Lootman wrote:The experience was already cited.

So what can be legitimately inferred from that?

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470306

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 11:08 pm

XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:I can't follow the "logic" there, can you explain? As for "experience", much the same.

The logic is that nobody knows the truth as everything around ERNIE is shrouded in secrecy, presumably so people cannot hack it.

Uh? Very little around ERNIE is "shrouded in secrecy", though the equipment itself has to be kept physically secure.

Which tells us nothing about any tweaks to the randomness of the draw.

Unless of course you have some kind of inside knowledge.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470311

Postby chas49 » January 4th, 2022, 11:16 pm

Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:The logic is that nobody knows the truth as everything around ERNIE is shrouded in secrecy, presumably so people cannot hack it.

Uh? Very little around ERNIE is "shrouded in secrecy", though the equipment itself has to be kept physically secure.

Which tells us nothing about any tweaks to the randomness of the draw.

Unless of course you have some kind of inside knowledge.


From the NS&I link given by XFool:

But how can you prove it’s all random?
The test of proving that ERNIE’s outputs are robust has long been discussed by experts in the field of randomness.

However, from the outset, engineers working in conjunction with – but exclusive of – the ERNIE programme have proven that the numbers created by the machine are unpredictable and follow no set patterns.

The original system to test ERNIE’s randomness was called Pegasus, designed by Dame Stephanie Shirley, who went on to be one of Britain’s greatest computer engineers.

Since then, as with ERNIE’s evolution, testing randomness has developed and is now managed by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD).

Each month after the Premium Bonds numbers have been generated, they are sent securely to GAD who run a number of tests to identify whether the outputs are truly random:

The frequency test – whether every possible character in each position of the Bond number appears as often as it should.
The serial test – looking at the number of times one digit follows another (for example the number of 3s coming directly after 7s).
The poker test – looking at the number of times that a group of characters generated consecutively contain four identical characters, three of a kind, two pairs, one pair and all different.
The correlation test – looking for correlation between characters in two different Bond positions over a series of Bond numbers.
ERNIE has never failed to be anything but random in every test carried out by GAD.

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Re: Premium Bonds

#470312

Postby Lootman » January 4th, 2022, 11:21 pm

chas49 wrote:
Lootman wrote:
XFool wrote:Uh? Very little around ERNIE is "shrouded in secrecy", though the equipment itself has to be kept physically secure.

Which tells us nothing about any tweaks to the randomness of the draw.

Unless of course you have some kind of inside knowledge.

From the NS&I link given by XFool:

But how can you prove it’s all random?
The test of proving that ERNIE’s outputs are robust has long been discussed by experts in the field of randomness.

However, from the outset, engineers working in conjunction with – but exclusive of – the ERNIE programme have proven that the numbers created by the machine are unpredictable and follow no set patterns.

The original system to test ERNIE’s randomness was called Pegasus, designed by Dame Stephanie Shirley, who went on to be one of Britain’s greatest computer engineers.

Since then, as with ERNIE’s evolution, testing randomness has developed and is now managed by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD).

Each month after the Premium Bonds numbers have been generated, they are sent securely to GAD who run a number of tests to identify whether the outputs are truly random:

The frequency test – whether every possible character in each position of the Bond number appears as often as it should.
The serial test – looking at the number of times one digit follows another (for example the number of 3s coming directly after 7s).
The poker test – looking at the number of times that a group of characters generated consecutively contain four identical characters, three of a kind, two pairs, one pair and all different.
The correlation test – looking for correlation between characters in two different Bond positions over a series of Bond numbers.
ERNIE has never failed to be anything but random in every test carried out by GAD.

But if that ceased to be true at any point, then how would anyone know? It's not like the code is in the public domain. It is not an open and public process like, say, the national lottery. It is done in secret behind closed doors and so requires faith.

If you are asking whether I trust politicians to maintain the integrity that was clearly intended for ERNIE then I might share that good faith gesture. But I do not see how anyone here can prove the matter either way without a reference to third parties.


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