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How much do I need to save in Premium Bonds to win?
NS&I’s Premium Bonds pay out hundreds of millions each month, but the vast majority of savers have never won a single penny. Is it just bad luck or do you need a certain amount to really be in with a chance of winning?
NS&I’s Premium Bonds offer a brilliant dream for savers – that one day you may wake up and find yourself a millionaire.
Most know this is incredibly unlikely though. There are over 24 million bondholders hoping to win the two £1 million prizes given out each month, although a great deal of smaller prizes are also distributed each month.
Any prizes you do win from the monthly draws are entirely tax-free. But there's no guarantee you'll win anything and the money held in Premium Bonds does not earn an interest rate.
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Join more than 165,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with latest financial news, insights and expert analysis to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
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Most people who have money saved in Premium Bonds have never won in the monthly prize draws – just 38% of holders make up for 100% of the wins, data suggests.
That means a total of 14.3 million individuals in the UK have seen the cash saved in Premium Bonds remain entirely static, leaving it vulnerable to inflation.
A freedom of information request by AJ Bell found that Brits who have never won a Premium Bonds prize have held the bonds for 8.1 years on average.
The reason the majority of people who hold the bonds have never won is because they have a relatively small holding. People who have a lot of money saved in Premium Bonds are far likelier to scoop prizes.
Kalpana Fitzpatrick, digital editor-in-chief at MoneyWeek, said: “The tax-free nature of Premium Bonds is attractive if you have used up your cash ISA and personal savings allowances as they can help you avoid falling into the savings tax trap.
“But if you have not yet used up these allowances then sticking all your savings into Premium Bonds may not be the best way to grow your cash as any winnings are based purely on chance.
“Instead, you could consider putting that money into a high interest savings account that guarantees your money will grow, or invest your cash to build your long-term wealth. You can keep some money in Premium Bonds in case you get lucky.”
How much do you need to save in NS&I Premium Bonds to be likely to win?
For every £1 you have saved in Premium Bonds, you get one entry in the prize draw.
For example, someone who has the maximum £50,000 holding will get 50,000 entries in the prize draw, while someone who has the minimum £25 holding will get just 25 chances to win.
The more money you have in Premium Bonds, the more chances you have to win some of the prizes. However, the data suggests you need a much larger holding than you may expect to win anything.
Data obtained by AJ Bell shows the average bond holder who has never won a prize holds just under £129 in Premium Bonds.
Fewer than 1% of all Premium Bonds prizes handed out between February 2025 and January 2026 went to accounts with a holding worth less than £1,000, AJ Bell found.
Just 6% of the prizes distributed during that period went to account holders with £10,000 or less saved in Premium Bonds.
Conversely, 53% of all prizes went to those with the maximum account value of £50,000.
That means more than 90% of all prizes are being won by savers with over £10,000 saved in Premium Bonds, meaning you are unlikely to win prizes if you do not put a serious amount of cash in.
How can I increase my chances of winning in the Premium Bonds prize draw?
There is only one way to increase your chances of winning in the Premium Bonds prize draw, and that is to increase the amount of money you hold.
The way to maximise your chances of winning is to invest the maximum £50,000.
If you don't have £50,000 of Premium Bonds, you could choose to buy more.
Premium Bonds holders have the option to automatically reinvest any Premium Bonds prizes they win, improving their chances of winning again in the future.
Where else could you put your money for guaranteed growth?
With more than half of all Premium Bonds winners having £50,000 in the savings vehicle, it raises the question of whether this is a wise choice.
On the one hand, having the maximum holding will make you much more likely to see some sort of return on your money every month, and there's a chance you could win £1 million.
But none of this is guaranteed. Even if you have the maximum Premium Bonds holding, there is still a chance you will not ever win a prize – those with especially bad luck may even see their cash be static for prolonged periods.
Instead, it can be a better option to put the money into a high interest savings account.
If you put £50,000 into a competitive fixed rate savings account paying 5% interest for one year, you would get £2,558 in interest by the end of the term.
According to the statistics, it is very unlikely that you wouldn't win any prize if you hold £50,000 in Premium Bonds for one year, and you might win prizes worth more than £2,250. But none of this is guaranteed with Premium Bonds.
Could investing make more sense than Premium Bonds?
If you already have an emergency savings pot elsewhere, investing the money you hold in Premium Bonds could be a better financial decision in the long-term.
If you don't win any Premium Bonds prizes, the money you have in them doesn't grow and starts to erode away in real terms thanks to inflation.
Money invested in a well-diversified portfolio over the long term tends to grow – though the value of your investments can go down as well as up.
The average Premium Bonds holder who has never won a prize has £128.91 in bonds and keeps their cash in the vehicle for 8.1 years.
If they had invested the money in a global tracker fund for the same duration to 3 July 2026, they could have grown their money by 162% to £338.30. If the initial investment was £5,000, it could have risen to £13,122 over that period.
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at AJ Bell, said: “The Premium Bonds odds are stacked against you. In any given month, each bond has a 22,000 to 1 chance of a win of any kind, and a vanishingly small chance of winning a life-changing sum of money.”
She said considering the average unlucky bond holder keeps their cash in Premium Bonds for over eight years, it makes sense to consider investing it instead as five to ten years “is usually long enough to ride out the short-term ups and downs and take advantage of the long-term growth potential of investments".
“There will always be people who love Premium Bonds, and there will be those who have never won but still cling to the hope that their lucky day might be around the corner. However, if you’ve left money in these bonds for years, it’s worth considering how much you’ve won overall, and asking yourself whether you have kept pace with inflation, or whether your money could be working harder for you in savings or investments.”
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Daniel is a financial journalist at MoneyWeek, writing about personal finance, economics, property, politics, and investing.
He covers savings, political news and enjoys translating economic data into simple English, and explaining what it means for your wallet.
Daniel joined MoneyWeek in January 2025 and previously worked at The Economist in their Audience team. He read history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and edited Cambridge's student newspaper, Varsity.
In his free time, he likes reading, walking around Hampstead Heath, and cooking overambitious meals.
