August NS&I Premium Bond winners unveiled - have you scooped £1m?

Two lucky people from Hereford & Worcester and Essex have become millionaires after scooping the top prize in August’s National Savings and Investments (NS&I) Premium Bonds prize draw.

The monthly prize draw offers two top prizes of £1 million. 

The first Bond number drawn by ERNIE - NS&I’s random number generating machine - for August was 522MP682337 and is held by a winner based in Hereford & Worcester. The winner has the maximum holding of £50,000 in Premium Bonds, and purchased their winning Bond just last year in December 2022. They become the eleventh winner in Hereford & Worcester. 

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

The second Premium Bonds millionaire bought their Bonds just a few months ago and is based in Essex and holds Bond number 535RC655361. The winner has £23,700 in Premium Bonds and purchased their winning Bond in April 2023. This win makes them the 22nd millionaire from Essex.

Winners will get a visit from Agent Million.

But it is not only jackpot winners who have found their luck this month. The August draw saw the prize fund rate increase to 4%, and the odds improve from 24,000 to 1 to 22,000 to 1, meaning that each £1 Bond now has its best chance of winning a prize in almost 15 years.

This month also saw an extra £30 million added to the prize fund, with 455,390 extra prizes available for bondholders to win. 

August 2023 Premium Bond prize winners

A prize fund of more than £404 million will be paid out to winners across the country, with a total of 121,368,267,494 bond numbers eligible for the draw.

Since the first draw in June 1957, ERNIE has drawn 637 million prizes with a total value of £26.8 billion.

Jill Waters, NS&I Retail Director, said: “Congratulations to our two millionaires from Hereford & Worcester and Essex. Both of our winners waited under a year to win the jackpot, with one winning after eight months and the other after just four months. This shows that big prizes can be won at any time, regardless of how long you’ve had your Premium Bonds. We hope each of our millionaires enjoys their winnings.

“The Premium Bonds prize fund rate has now hit 4%, the highest it’s been since 2007, meaning we’ll be paying out over £404 million in prizes this month to lucky winners up and down the country.”

How to check for NS&I Premium Bond prizes

You can see if you won in the July prize draw using the nsandi.com prize checker or the official prize checker app, available on either Android or iOS, although you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for the latest results to come through.

You will need your Premium Bonds holder’s number to use the website and your NS&I number or holder’s number to check via the prize checker app.

You can also use your Alexa-enabled device so check if you’ve won. Alexa will be able to tell you whether you have won a prize and how much it's worth, as well as details for any upcoming draws.

It can also tell you if you have any prizes yet to be redeemed, such as a £25 prize from July 1968, which remains unclaimed.

To get it set up, you’ll need to activate the NS&I Premium Bonds prize checker skill on your Alexa app and enter your NS&I number. After that, you will be able to use your smart speaker to stay updated on all things Premium Bonds.

Doing this will also show you if you have any unclaimed prizes. In Hereford & Worcester, home of August’s winning bond holder there are 19,033 unclaimed prizes worth £668,775. 

The largest unclaimed prize is worth £100,000 and this was from the August 2014 prize draw. The oldest unclaimed prize in Hereford & Worcester is from the August 1965 prize draw, and is worth £25.

Likewise in Essex, there are 50,596 unclaimed prizes with a total value of £1,530,625. The largest unclaimed prize is £10,000. There are two of these in total and they were won in the December 2007 and March 2016 prize draws. The oldest unclaimed prize in Essex is from February 1964 and is worth £25.

For more information on how to track down any unclaimed prizes, visit the NS&I website.