Premium Bonds January 2020: are you a winner?
The first Premium Bond winners of the decade have been announced
3rd January 2020 07:44
by Brean Horne from interactive investor
The first Premium Bond winners of the decade have been announced
Two lucky Premium Bond holders have won the first £1m jackpot prizes of the decade.
The first number randomly selected by ERNIE was 244DT242763, which belongs to a man living in Hertfordshire who purchased his winning Bond in April 2015.
He has a total holding of £40,000 in Premium Bonds and becomes the tenth jackpot millionaire from the county.
January’s second jackpot recipient is a woman from Cheshire East with the winning Bond number of 278CW859665.
She bought the winning Bond back in August 2016 and holds the maximum amount allowed in Premium Bonds with a total holding of £50,000.
She becomes the ninth winner in the Cheshire East area to be visited by Agent Million
The winners were visited by Agent Million, on New Year’s Day to receive the good news.
In the January prize draw, a total of 3,471,112 prizes worth £99,215,975 will be paid out.
Since the first draw in June 1957, ERNIE has drawn 466 million prizes with a total value of £20.1 billion.
The table below shows the January 2020 Premium Bonds prize breakdown.
| Value of prize | Number of prizes |
|---|---|
| £1,000,000 | 2 |
| £100,000 | 6 |
| £50,000 | 12 |
| £25,000 | 23 |
| £10,000 | 59 |
| £5,000 | 119 |
| £1,000 | 1,984 |
| £500 | 5,952 |
| £100 | 27,221 |
| £50 | 27,221 |
| £25 | 3,408,513 |
Unclaimed Premium Bond Prizes
There are now more than 1.7 million prizes worth over £64 million still waiting to be claimed by Premium Bonds holders.
In Hertfordshire, for example, there are 38,407 unclaimed prizes worth over £1,366,000.
The highest value unclaimed prize is worth £10,000, won in December 2017 with Bond number 148LB252543.
In Cheshire East, a total of 9,094 prizes worth £322,875 have been unclaimed.
The highest prize waiting to be claimed in the area is £1,000.
You can check your Premium bonds and whether you’ve one on the NS&I website, via the Prize Checker app on iOS and Android or through an Alexa-enabled device.
Premium Bond holders can also opt to have winnings paid directly into their bank or building society account, to make certain that their prizes are always claimed.
This article was originally published in our sister magazine Moneywise, which ceased publication in August 2020.
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