Two Premium Bond holders from Wiltshire and Bedfordshire are celebrating the start of spring having both scooped the top £1 million prize in March’s Premium Bonds prize draw.
A man in Wiltshire who has owned a few Premium Bonds since childhood has struck it lucky in March’s draw, while the winner from Bedfordshire only bought Premium Bonds for the first time in January this year, and has hit the jackpot in their very first draw.
This is the second time this year already that Agent Million has visited Wiltshire – the seventh time overall - and it has been just over two years since Bedfordshire’s last jackpot win, its fourth in total.
The man in Wiltshire (Bond number: 310EQ043977) is the second Premium Bonds holder in the region to win the jackpot in 2018, with the last being in January’s prize draw. The winner had held just a small amount in Premium Bonds since childhood, but invested to the maximum holding limit of £50,000 in August 2017, just seven months ago.
The man in Bedfordshire (Bond number: 320GM702120) has scooped the other £1 million jackpot prize on his first month as a Premium Bonds customer. He has £7,500 invested in Premium Bonds and bought the winning Bond in January 2018, worth £7,000, and this was the first draw in which his Bonds were eligible to win prizes. He has since made a subsequent purchase of more Premium Bonds, however these are not eligible until next month’s prize draw.
March’s jackpot winners are the 381st and 382nd lucky recipients of Premium Bonds’ top prize.
Jill Waters, Retail Director at NS&I, said:
“The popularity of Premium Bonds is enriched with the moments ERNIE creates and the great stories that are there to be told. This month sees a second win in the county of Wiltshire in three months and shows how an investment, which initially started with just a few Bonds in childhood, has increased over time - reaching the maximum - and has landed the jackpot prize. Luck was also in for the Bedfordshire winner, winning the £1 million prize with his initial investment.
“March’s jackpot winners won with Bonds purchased within the last seven months, and ERNIE has rewarded them with the top prizes in such a short space of time.
In total, over 3 million prizes have been paid out in March 2018’s prize draw. This is the first month in which ERNIE has paid out over 3 million prizes.
Customers can find out if they have been successful in this month’s draw by downloading the prize checker app for free from the App Store or Google Play or using the prize checker on nsandi.com. The results will be published in full on Friday 2 March.
Paying directly to your bank account
Both winners have signed up to receive prizes directly into their bank accounts but luckily for them, Agent Million will be hand delivering their prizes this month.
Customers can register to manage their Bonds online at nsandi.com and by phone, and choose to have any future prizes paid directly into a nominated bank account.
Over 1.6 million Premium Bonds customers have now registered for this option. To find out more, visit the NS&I website: https://www.nsandi.com/can-my-prizes-be-paid-straight-my-bank-account
Jill Waters continued:
“It’s great to see that more of our customers are opting to have their prizes paid directly into their bank account when they purchase Premium Bonds, with over 1.7 million now choosing to have their prizes paid this way. Using this method and keeping your details up to date with NS&I will help reduce the chances of future prizes becoming unclaimed.”
There are currently around 1.4 million unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes, worth over £58 million. In Wiltshire, there are currently around 9,000 unclaimed prizes worth over £330,000. Bedfordshire currently has around 5,000 unclaimed prizes worth over £200,000.
To check whether they have any unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes, customers can visit the NS&I website at www.nsandi.com, download the prize checker app for free at the App Store on or Google Play to see if they’re owed a prize. They can also write to us at NS&I, Glasgow, G58 1SB asking for their prize history (they need to include their name, address and NS&I number or Premium Bonds holder’s number). We’ll send them a list of the prizes they’ve won.
March 2018 prize breakdown
In the March 2018 draw, a total of 3,004,822 prizes worth £85,887,850 will be paid out. There were 73,618,138,796 eligible Bonds for the draw.
Since the first draw in June 1957, ERNIE has drawn 395 million winning prizes, to the value of £18.1 billion.
| Value of prize | Number of prizes |
| £1,000,000 | 2 |
| £100,000 | 5 |
| £50,000 | 8 |
| £25,000 | 19 |
| £10,000 | 46 |
| £5,000 | 92 |
| £1,000 | 1,717 |
| £500 | 5,151 |
| £100 | 23,558 |
| £50 | 23,558 |
| £25 | 2,950,666 |
| Total prize fund value £85,887,850 | Total number of prizes 3,004,822 |