€25k invested in prize bonds

eamonn147

its all luck i think ive won 200 euro four 50 euro prizes on a set of bonds valued at 6300 this year and have won nothing this year on 5800 and 8000..its still over 1 percent on 20k but not so good..in the new year i may put the batches ive won nothing on into one batch of bonds and throw another 5k in..ill keep the batch of 6300 as i think they are lucky two of my wins were two bonds in sequence..but it has to be luck in saying that allot of new bonds win prizes..all my bonds were purchased early 2015..

i did however think that over 3000 bonds would win more in a year but all it takes is one big win and someone wins it every week who is to say a person with a grands worth didnt win the jackpot they sure wouldnt post it here its luck..i did complain about the prize structure a few months ago and got a reply stating that every bond has the same chance of winning as they are all in the weekly draw..my last 50 euro win was in august so been a barren few months

goose06

PaddyWilliams wrote: »

Ouch, thanks

I've 1K in and won 2*50 pot luck

Agent Smyth

In theory it shouldn't mater how you hold your PBs,
In 2013 I had 50K in various amounts starting at €1500 up to €5000 and won €1050.
In 2014 my winnings were €800 from the same bonds, this year those bonds have won twice, once in Jan and once in Feb

In march this year I sold some of those batches and bought a few large batches of bonds, €48500 and 2 x €62500 which brings my total to €196K, since April this year I have won €1550 on these bonds, all of which have been on the new big batches.
So in theory it shouldn't mater but my experience this year would suggest otherwise.

Sligo Quay

goose06 wrote: »

I've 1K in and won 2*50 pot luck

That's all it is POT LUCK! In years gone by I had an obsession in winning the jackpot, have 100 bonds from the 1980s, after 23 years won 2x€75 euro, then purchase €20,000 batch in August 2015, won €50 4th September, then another €50 11th September, nothing since, I've a €30,000 saving bond maturing in June 2016, so may put that into prize bonds, in a climate of low interest rates, it's worth a gamble on that Friday feeling.

Mary63

I will ask OH how he bought them.

I know he is winning fifty euros fairly regularly and he won his first hundred euros sat week.

He thinks he is doing very well with the money invested and the winnings are tax free.

_Tombstone_

Mary63 wrote: »

I will ask OH how he bought them.

I know he is winning fifty euros fairly regularly and he won his first hundred euros sat week.

He thinks he is doing very well with the money invested and the winnings are tax free.

Doesn't matter how, still luck of the Draw.

tuisginideach

Mary63 wrote: »

I will ask OH how he bought them.

I know he is winning fifty euros fairly regularly and he won his first hundred euros sat week.

He thinks he is doing very well with the money invested and the winnings are tax free.

What does 'fairly regularly' indicate?

Negative_G

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Doesn't matter how, still luck of the Draw.

While you are completely correct. As someone previously explained there does seem to be more success with larger batches than smaller batches.

For example, from my initial purchase of 50k, out of 8 separate wins of 50 euro, 7 of those have came from the initial purchase. With only one win coming from a bond number which was won off the initial batch.

I agree with you, but would advise larger single batch purchases rather than smaller less frequent purchases, based both on my own experience and anecdotal evidence both here and elsewhere.

Thargor

There is no way in hell State Savings would tolerate a system where a bond bought one way has a better chance of winning than a bond bought in another way. Every single bond number in the draw has the exact same chance of being randomly selected by the computer as any other. Any anecdotal evidence you hear in this thread or your own experience is just confirmation bias.

Agent Smyth

Thargor wrote: »

There is no way in hell State Savings would tolerate a system where a bond bought one way has a better chance of winning than a bond bought in another way. Every single bond number in the draw has the exact same chance of being randomly selected by the computer as any other. Any anecdotal evidence you hear in this thread or your own experience is just confirmation bias.

While you are correct in saying each single bond has the same chance of winning a prize as the next one but we are not talking about a single bond here but rather if you have a lot of bonds, is it better to hold lots of small amounts or have it all in one batch.

Thargor

Agent Smyth wrote: »

While you are correct in saying each single bond has the same chance of winning a prize as the next one but we are not talking about a single bond here but rather if you have a lot of bonds, is it better to hold lots of small amounts or have it all in one batch.

Exact same answer, every single bond in every batch has the exact same chance of winning as every other bond in every other batch. 2 people with the same amount of bonds have the exact same chance of winning next Friday even if they bought them in completely different ways.

carrickbawn

Does anybody know what time todays draw is on ?

goose06

carrickbawn wrote: »

Does anybody know what time todays draw is on ?

3 I think

Agent Smyth

Thargor wrote: »

Exact same answer, every single bond in every batch has the exact same chance of winning as every other bond in every other batch. 2 people with the same amount of bonds have the exact same chance of winning next Friday even if they bought them in completely different ways.

Yes I agree with you but you are still talking about a single bonds chance of winning a prize, what I am asking/questioning is if you had €50,000s worth of PBs is the odds of winning better if held in one €50k batch or spread out over 50 €1k batches ??

SteelyDanJalapeno

Agent Smyth wrote: »

Yes I agree with you but you are still talking about a single bonds chance of winning a prize, what I am asking/questioning is if you had €50,000s worth of PBs is the odds of winning better if held in one €50k batch or spread out over 50 €1k batches ??

It's the exact same

Thargor

Agent Smyth wrote: »

Yes I agree with you but you are still talking about a single bonds chance of winning a prize, what I am asking/questioning is if you had €50,000s worth of PBs is the odds of winning better if held in one €50k batch or spread out over 50 €1k batches ??

Can you explain why you think it could possibly be any different?

tuisginideach

€50 today!

Happy Christmas to all and better luck for all of us in 2016!

topper_harley2

Thargor wrote: »

Can you explain why you think it could possibly be any different?

Yes definitely looking forward to the answer to this too!

carrickbawn

Nothing for me today,, So dissapointed. Really thought that the prize bond Santa would reward me for my loyalty..Maybe I need to behave better.. or else I need to cop on and find a better home for my investments...

Agent Smyth

topper_harley2 wrote: »

Yes definitely looking forward to the answer to this too!

No I cant explain why it would be different and I have never said it would be different but I find it hard to believe that in a formula for calculating odds, how you hold say €50k in 50x1k, 10x5k, 2x25k or 1x50k batch won’t have an effect on the answer.

To say the answer is the exact same might be the correct answer but nobody has given any reason other than each single bond has the same chance of winning and maybe that is because there is no right or wrong answer or formula for a proper answer ??

blindside88

Agent Smyth wrote: »

No I cant explain why it would be different and I have never said it would be different but I find it hard to believe that in a formula for calculating odds, how you hold say €50k in 50x1k, 10x5k, 2x25k or 1x50k batch won’t have an effect on the answer.

To say the answer is the exact same might be the correct answer but nobody has given any reason other than each single bond has the same chance of winning and maybe that is because there is no right or wrong answer or formula for a proper answer ??

There is a right answer, it's all down to probability. Saw there are 10 tickets in the draw. I have number 1, 6 and 10. You have numbers 7,8 and 9. The rest are all owned by individual people. You and I have the same chance of our number being drawn out even though my numbers are spread and and yours are clumped. We also each have 3 times the chance that each of the individuals have.

topper_harley2

Agent Smyth wrote: »

No I cant explain why it would be different and I have never said it would be different but I find it hard to believe that in a formula for calculating odds, how you hold say €50k in 50x1k, 10x5k, 2x25k or 1x50k batch won’t have an effect on the answer.

To say the answer is the exact same might be the correct answer but nobody has given any reason other than each single bond has the same chance of winning and maybe that is because there is no right or wrong answer or formula for a proper answer ??

There's no formula as the question doesn't warrant one. Think of the PB draw being a huge raffle drum with 1,000,000 tickets and one winning ticket is to be drawn. When filling the drum, the organisers have to separate all tickets so that only one is drawn at a time. Hence your "blocks" of tickets no longer exist once they are in the draw drum - the tickets are now in single form. So if you own 50k tickets then you have 50,000* 100/1,000,000 chance of having a winning ticket, independent of how the 50k was bought. Do you see now? The blocks of tickets only exist at purchase time, not at draw time, thereby giving each ticket 100% exactly identical chance of being picked.

Agent Smyth

topper_harley2 wrote: »

There's no formula as the question doesn't warrant one. Think of the PB draw being a huge raffle drum with 1,000,000 tickets and one winning ticket is to be drawn. When filling the drum, the organisers have to separate all tickets so that only one is drawn at a time. Hence your "blocks" of tickets no longer exist once they are in the draw drum - the tickets are now in single form. So if you own 50k tickets then you have 50,000* 100/1,000,000 chance of having a winning ticket, independent of how the 50k was bought. Do you see now? The blocks of tickets only exist at purchase time, not at draw time, thereby giving each ticket 100% exactly identical chance of being picked.

I wouldn't say there is no formula for this and maybe it doesn't warrant one but I would just be interested in seeing if there is one and what the answer would be.
Your analogy is one way of looking at the draw and was the way it was done before computers did it. Now the computers are programed to pick a ticket from 392 million tickets in the draw, nobody knows how the computer will pick these tickets as it is random but are the tickets stored in numerical order or are they all mixed up on the data base, if stored in numerical order then blocks of tickets might give you a slight advantage. Maybe the computer shuffles all the tickets before selecting and then there would be no advantage.

Just to be clear I'm not saying how you buy your bonds will have a affect on your chances of winning, we all know its a game of luck and no matter how big or small your holdings are or how you have bought them has no effect on the end result of each draw because each draw is unique and weather you win or not is down to pure luck. To me its kind of like the scenario of the lotto ticket, would you pick the combination 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 2,9,15,18,23,36. I think most people would pick the second even though each has the same chance of winning.

topper_harley2

Agent Smyth wrote: »

I wouldn't say there is no formula for this and maybe it doesn't warrant one but I would just be interested in seeing if there is one and what the answer would be.
Your analogy is one way of looking at the draw and was the way it was done before computers did it. Now the computers are programed to pick a ticket from 392 million tickets in the draw, nobody knows how the computer will pick these tickets as it is random but are the tickets stored in numerical order or are they all mixed up on the data base, if stored in numerical order then blocks of tickets might give you a slight advantage. Maybe the computer shuffles all the tickets before selecting and then there would be no advantage.

Just to be clear I'm not saying how you buy your bonds will have a affect on your chances of winning, we all know its a game of luck and no matter how big or small your holdings are or how you have bought them has no effect on the end result of each draw because each draw is unique and weather you win or not is down to pure luck. To me its kind of like the scenario of the lotto ticket, would you pick the combination 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 2,9,15,18,23,36. I think most people would pick the second even though each has the same chance of winning.

If they were stored numerically, how would that help? Say there are the 392 million tickets sequentially stored in database and you own one full 50k block as well as another 50k scattered individually, if computer is picking single ticket then each still has same chance of being picked. It doesn't matter where they are stored. As you say, it's same as lotto example, any "pattern" is all in people's heads.

Another example is coin toss. After 9 consecutive heads, most people would say it's "due"to be tails, but odds of a tenth head are still 50/50, as previous 9 have no impact.

FoolsGold1

Winnings on 18th December - €50
Last win - €50 on 27th November.
That's €600 on €60K+ for full year since 1st January.
Poor, I know, but I don't really expect to get the 'going rate' (!) as one good shaft of luck would soften my cough. Anyway, they never promised me a rose garden. Happy Christmas and fruitful New Year to all!

Sligo Quay

Thargor wrote: »

There is no way in hell State Savings would tolerate a system where a bond bought one way has a better chance of winning than a bond bought in another way. Every single bond number in the draw has the exact same chance of being randomly selected by the computer as any other. Any anecdotal evidence you hear in this thread or your own experience is just confirmation bias.

Absolutely correct, but the more bonds you hold, the more chances of winning, that's about it, but each and every individual bond has the same chance of winning, now today's jackpot winner in Kerry, was it a lone individual bond, or from a batch, we don't know and it doesn't matter, it's still just 1 bond that's won a €1,000,000.
Today I won nothing, last win 11th September €50, happy Christmas and happy New Year.

pbwinner

Winnings on 23 December 2015: €0
Last win 4 December 2015: €50
Total winnings since Feb 2011 on €25k: €2050

Negative_G

Any idea when the next draw is on? I had thought it may have been mid week this just passed as it was for Christmas week but not the case.

_Tombstone_

Negative_G wrote: »

Any idea when the next draw is on? I had thought it may have been mid week this just passed as it was for Christmas week but not the case.

http://www.statesavings.ie/PrizeBonds/Pages/PrizeBonds.aspx

^^Monday

Sure they'll write to ya if you win.

Negative_G

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

http://www.statesavings.ie/PrizeBonds/Pages/PrizeBonds.aspx

^^Monday

Sure they'll write to ya if you win.

Thank you for that. Should've dug a little deeper!