Interest rates on Premium Bonds have gone up, and the chances of winning a prize have risen too.

Do older bonds have a lower chance of winning than newer ones? Several Money Box listeners think so.

We asked for your comments. This debate has now closed.

I have a single one pound bond purchased by my grandparents in 1965, and have twice received winnings of 50 and 100 pounds. I still think I have as much chance as any of winning a big prize, and intend to invest heavily in the future.
Lynne Coulson

The percentage of prize money is not impressive and not sufficiently counterbalanced by the possibility of a big win.
Wilf Bell

I was intrigued to hear your item on premium bonds.

Last year, before the maximum investment was raised to �30,000, I held �20,000 in them. Disappointed that I had not won anything for a few months (�50 being my maximum win), I wrote to them.

They replied with a standard letter. But a few days later I received �50 and, to my surprise, the winning bond number was exactly the same as the one that had produced �50 some months before.

Is this an amazing coincidence or should I smell a rat?
Mrs Hannah Scott

The odds of winning a prize just now is 27,500:1.

This means that someone owning just one bond should - on average - win once in 2,291 years! The chances of winning �1million are 22million:1.

My wife and I hold �20,000 and we have won 4% in each of the last 3 years. The good thing is the capital is safe. And someone has to win the big one and it could be us!
Bob Higginbotham

I still own bonds dating back to 1957 and have never had a sniff at a prize!
Bill Bryans

My son was given premium bonds when he was two years of age, and they appear to have been lost in the ether, as he is now 45. But he won �50 last month from Bonds bought last December.
Mary Jane

I have a block of 50 bonds which were bought for me in 1964 and I have never won a penny! Like Terry Cooper I wonder what that investment would be worth today had it been in a building society.
Pauline Janikoun

My son was given a premium bond at birth 45 years ago in 1958; and has yet to receive a prize. It seems a long time to wait
R Foster

In 1958 I bought three premium bonds and in 1964 I bought another five. I have never won anything. An irony, considering it was a friend who gave me the first three as a birthday present, in the hope that they would win me a lot of money.
Thelma Gemmell

Many people do not seem to realise you can check to see if you have won, but you can do so online at the following address:

This sounds like a classic case of human beings spotting patterns where none exist. Show people a genuinely random sequence and they will say it cannot be because they spot a pattern.
Stewart

To be virtually guaranteed a monthly win you need numbers to be consecutive. I have �20,000 in four �500 blocks running consecutively. When you apply specify you want consecutive numbers.

So far this year I have won �400 (eight lots of �50); �150 in January; �50 April; �150 May; and �50 in June.
Bob Balser

In 1959 whilst I was in the army doing my national service, and my wage was �1.50 a week, my poor old mum purchased for me - out of money she saved every week - �50 of premium bonds to give me when I came out.

Well I still have those bonds and have won nothing. How much would �50 be worth now? Soon there will not be enough in them to buy some flowers for my poor old mum's grave.

Why do I keep them? Because it is a memento of my mum and how kind she was. I do not believe old bonds win. Check Teletext, it is always the large late bond holders that win, very seldom old bonds.

I shall end up framing them and placing them on the wall like old worthless company bonds to remind me never to make this mistake again.
Terry Cooper

I listen with interest, and sympathise with your featured listener. I have premium bonds that where given to me when I was a small child. I have about 30 numbers. They have never really produced anything, except one prize I think. I was 40 this year.
Mark

Any individual bond has an equal chance of winning. The reason older bonds do not appear in the list of winners is that there are less of them.

A higher percentage of older bonds will have been repaid. For example bonds cannot be left in a will they must cashed in when their owner dies. As these repaid bonds are not eligible for a prize the will not appear in a list of winning tickets.
Mark Anderson

Surely with people selling bonds there must be less old ones than new ones in the draw? More and more people buying new ones mean more new ones in the draw? Or am I wrong?
Angela Fawson

It has certainly been the experience of my wife and I that shortly after you buy a block of bonds you win a small prize and then never hear from them again.

This is highly statistically improbable unless something else is happening. On a different point I think the automatic re-investment of prizes leaves a security flaw when so much post goes astray these days. You may win and never realise because you never actually receive your certificate!
Jon Douglas

My bonds date from the mid 60s, my children's from the early 70s and 80s, and no winnings ever! Yet a friend has bonds from the late 80s early 90s and wins a few times each year.
Sue

I have two premium bonds bought in the early 1970s. I have only won once, �50 in 2000. I wonder if there may be less bonds from these earlier years in the draw, meaning less winners, just a thought.
Sue Harris

The comments we publish are not necessarily the views of the BBC but will reflect the balance of views we have received. It is helpful if contributors state if they work for any organisation relevant to an issue discussed. Readers should form their own views on whether messages published represent undeclared interests, or views prompted by a common source.