Blast from the past as premium bond saver scores £50,000 prize with just £22 worth of bonds bought in 1970

A Premium Bond holder has defied the odds to scoop £50,000, the third biggest prize on offer in the monthly prize draw, with a stake of just £22.

The winner purchased his winning bond 54 years ago, in February 1970, proving that good things often come to those who wait.

This lucky winner, based in Humberside, saw a 227.173 per cent return on his initial investment, although it took more than half a century to achieve.

We previously revealed that the odds of winning at least £50,000 in prizes with a stake of £50 are 9.5 million to 1.

Therefore, the winner of the November 2024 draw was even more likely to win a £50,000 prize.

Other notable winners from this month’s draw include two Premium Bond holders who managed to secure £100,000 prizes with holdings of £1,000, meaning a 900 per cent return on their investment.

One of these winners, from Suffolk, won £100,000 from a bond they bought in June 1998, more than 26 years ago.

The other winner, based in Barnet, bought his winning bond in April 2014.

The two winners of this month’s £1 million jackpot reside in Warwickshire and Cornwall.

The Cornwall-based winner had a stake of £38,000 and bought his winning bond just 10 months ago, in January 2024.

The Warwickshire winner took home the other coveted prize of £1m with a maximum stake of £50,000 from a bond purchased in November 2016.

A total of 6 million prizes worth £464 million will be paid out in the November draw. There were 126.5 billion bond numbers eligible for the drawing.

Starting next month, the Premium Bond prize pool will be reduced from its current level of 4.4 percent to 4.15 percent.

This means that the odds of winning a prize will increase to 22,000 to 1.

The number of £1 million jackpots remains the same, two each month.

But there will be fewer jackpots of £100,000 and £50,000 in December.

NS&I say there will be 83 prizes of £100,000, six fewer than the most recent draw, and 167 prizes of £50,000, down 10.