Fewer than 1% of Premium Bonds prizes go to those holding less than £1,000

The allure of Premium Bonds resides in the potential for holders to win a prize up to a maximum of £1 million, but many of those with money in the accounts will never win – or see a return on their money at all. There are more than 14 million premium bond holders yet to win a prize big or small, making up nearly two thirds of all account holders.

Fewer than 1% of the prizes dished out between February 2025 and January 2026 went to those with accounts worth less than £1,000, according to the data revealed by the NS&I. What’s more, this cohort of Premium Bond holders made up around three quarters of all who held the accounts in February 2025. This highlights the significant disadvantage that many account holders with smaller amounts face when it comes to the likelihood of winning a prize. Even when looking at account sizes up to £10,000, just 6% of prizes fell into the hands of account holders in that bracket during the period. Conversely, 53% of all prizes went to those with the maximum account value of £50,000.

Among non-winners the average Premium Bond account holding is £128.91, showing that unless you’re willing to fill the accounts with larger sums of spare cash you’re unlikely to win at all. Interestingly, it also represents an increase in the average non-winning account holding from last year by a fifth.

The proliferation of small accounts among Premium Bond holders will be down to a number of things. Premium Bonds are a popular financial gift for children and many will have been holding the accounts for decades since they were young, meaning it’s possible they, or the family members who opened the accounts, have simply forgotten about their bonds – particularly if they’ve never won anything. Others will have let their Premium Bonds account drift because they can’t remember their account details and don’t fancy going through the effort of recovering the account for the sake of a few quid.  

NS&I’s headline ‘prize fund rate’ on Premium Bonds is set to drop to 3.3% from April this year, with the odds of winning also set to widen from 22,000 to 1 out to 23,000 to 1 at the same time. There will likely be many Premium Bond holders who believe the 3.3% represents a return on cash they hold in the accounts, but in reality it masks that most people will never win anything. The rate is also eclipsed by many other cash saving accounts currently on the market, and comes well under what someone might expect to make on their money if they were to invest it in the stock market for the long term.

Making your cash work harder

While many savers value the security of holding government-backed Premium Bonds through NS&I, safety does not always translate to success.  

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in last autumn’s Budget that in April 2027 the allowance for Cash ISAs would be cut for under 65s from £20,000 to £12,000 in the hope that it would nudge more cash savers to take the step into investing. Although in practice very few people will have been using up their allowance above £12,000 a year, research by AJ Bell suggests that a quarter of Cash ISA savers would turn to Premium Bonds or other NS&I products in the event of a cut to the allowance – running counter to the government’s stated aim to get more Brits investing.

Over the longer term, investing has proven to beat cash returns, and short of winning one of the maximum prizes will undoubtedly stand a better chance than Premium Bonds at helping someone to amass wealth. For example, someone who had invested the non-winning Premium Bonds account average of £128.91 into Fidelity Index World 10 years ago would have seen a return of 252.3% and a pot worth a healthy £454.19. Had they decided to invest £1,000, that figure would have increased to £3,523.32**.

Suffice to say the vast majority of Premium Bond holders will not have been anywhere near those levels.

*Based on data obtained by AJ Bell from the NS&I via a Freedom of Information request, accurate as of 23 January 2026. The number of current holders who have not won a prize is based on data from February 1994 onwards and includes new holders who were not eligible as their bonds were not beyond one month purchased.

**Source: FE