The Lemon Fool

Bouleversee wrote:someone in Bucks. with the same no. of bonds as me had won £5000k

Wow that's a lot!

Scott.

£525 on a full holding.

£725 in the 6 months since opening.

C.

Nothing here on £25k.

Website says next updated due 4th May so I assume any April award would be showing now.

Mel

PinkDalek wrote:

Bouleversee wrote:... I had won the princely sum of £25 yet again. ...

Moi aussi. Yes the App is simple but I was hoping you'd have hit the jackpot.

Full holdings - tax years:

2016-17 £600
2017-18 £425
2018-19 £700
2019-20 £650
2020-21 £325 (5 blank months)

I told you you'd "win" this year! Was I right?

I'm afraid you are right. I won £425 this year. 3 blank months. Full holding. £575 has been my best total for some years and my total for the last 5 is £2475 so you are still ahead at £2700.

melonfool wrote:Nothing here on £25k.

Website says next updated due 4th May so I assume any April award would be showing now.

Mel

Strangely, the app says 5th May. Unless the website relates to the big prizes, which, IIRC, are announced a day earlier than the bulk of the prizes?

5th month of having just over £15k in play and nowt to show for it yet.

Martin Lewis assures me I'll win £50 in the first year, so Ernie is obviously just teasing me for a while

...Yes. The lower rate is certainly making itself felt.

First month we (2 x max holdings) got Nothing!

The lower returns are tempting me towards cashing in and investing in dividend shares or preference shares outside of an ISA. My wife and I have otherwise unused £4000 per year tax free dividend allowance.

Scott.

staffordian wrote:

melonfool wrote:Nothing here on £25k.

Website says next updated due 4th May so I assume any April award would be showing now.

Mel

Strangely, the app says 5th May. Unless the website relates to the big prizes, which, IIRC, are announced a day earlier than the bulk of the prizes?

Sorry, you're right, 5th.

Mel

melonfool wrote:Sorry, you're right, 5th.

Yes, Tuesday 4th May is first working day of May, so major prizes will be announced then. The rest will be out about midnight at the end of 4th/beginning of 5th.

Scott.

2 lots of £50k, 2 £50 wins this month.

The cash is most of what is waiting for builders and architects and planning to get sorted, the rest is in Marcus. I only just (like 10 min ago) got the email telling me I'd won, though it doesn't say how much.

And who knows, there is a slim chance we might win enough to pay for all the works next month.

Dr"put that glass back, there's a dribble left in the bottom"F

Strange win.

I won £75 this month (3 x £25) which went into my bank account earlier in the month, as normal. Last week, I received another £25 win in my account and a letter from NSI saying ...

'The prize has been reallocated because your bond is next in line on the reserve list and the original winner was not eligible to receive the prize'

I've not heard of this happening before, and it's a pity I wasn't the reserve for the big one, but every little helps.

I've had one of those in the past.

Not sure how the "reserve" list actually works but had assumed that everyone below the "non eligible" winner simply moves up one place in which case there'd have to be potentially millions of non eligible winners for someone to go from being a £25 winner to a £1M winner.

Laughton wrote:I've had one of those in the past.

Not sure how the "reserve" list actually works but had assumed that everyone below the "non eligible" winner simply moves up one place in which case there'd have to be potentially millions of non eligible winners for someone to go from being a £25 winner to a £1M winner.

Why? One one million pound winner is surely the same as any other one million pound winner? It's still 'only' one million pounds.

It presumably depends on whether there is just one reserve list for everything...

or there is a reserve list for each level of payout

The situation may have changed but in an answer to questions raised in Parliament on May 10 1962:

"You wished to know also what happens to prize money in such circumstances. The answer is that the prize list is adjusted so that the full amount of the prize fund is paid out to eligible bondholders. In the case of a £500 prize, the first £250 prize winner is paid a further £250; the first £100 winner gets another £150; the first £50 winner gets another £50; the first £25 winner gets another £25; and the first reserve is awarded £25. This is done because the prizes are awarded in the order in which the bond units are drawn, those drawn first taking the higher prizes. The reserve units are drawn as part of the ordinary draw, and they come up for prizes (if any) in the order in which they are drawn."

(https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... mium-bonds)

Note that because of the weekend and the bank holiday, the main results aren't out for next month until 5th May.

(Actually usually around midnight 4th/5th).

Scott.

Laughton wrote:The situation may have changed but in an answer to questions raised in Parliament on May 10 1962:

"You wished to know also what happens to prize money in such circumstances. The answer is that the prize list is adjusted so that the full amount of the prize fund is paid out to eligible bondholders. In the case of a £500 prize, the first £250 prize winner is paid a further £250; the first £100 winner gets another £150; the first £50 winner gets another £50; the first £25 winner gets another £25; and the first reserve is awarded £25. This is done because the prizes are awarded in the order in which the bond units are drawn, those drawn first taking the higher prizes. The reserve units are drawn as part of the ordinary draw, and they come up for prizes (if any) in the order in which they are drawn."

(https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hans ... mium-bonds)

I'm not sure I understand this. Why use such a system to allocate an invalid win amongst all other prize winners? Why not just - especially with a one million pound win - just pick another winner at random? Could this be historical now?

In 1962 the original Ernie was still in use, taking ten days to produce the draw.

https://nsandi-corporate.com/about-nsi/our-heritage-timeline#peacetime_period_ernie

"...he’ll generate bond numbers based on the signal noise created by neon tubes, and will take 10 days to complete a draw."

I guess 10 days was for a full draw, nevertheless. Nowadays a one off draw takes 12 minutes.

https://nsandi-corporate.com/about-nsi/our-heritage-timeline#internet_age_ernie5

"But from March 2019, ERNIE 5 uses quantum technology to generate the winning numbers, completing its first draw in just 12 minutes – over 40 times faster than ERNIE 4."

So, it surely would be easy to rerun a £1m prize draw on all valid bondholders and simply reallocate the prize at random? Unless I'm missing something.

"I'm not sure I understand this. Why use such a system to allocate an invalid win amongst all other prize winners?"

Seems like a pretty fair system to me. If there's an invalid win then everyone below effectively moves up the ladder.