€25k invested in prize bonds

My new bonds from the draw on Friday 19th arrived today 30th., BJY849113-124. The bonds from the draw on Tuesday 23rd not received yet, but I know they are BJZ450989-451000.

When the BJZ series completes very soon, that will be 936 million bonds since AAA started in July 2015. From 1956 to mid 2015 approx 700 million bonds were issued.

Nothing for me today.

The number of €75 prizes in the January 2026 draws is 8,720 up from 8,713 in December 2025. The newest bond to win on 05 December was BJW275974, newest 02 January BJZ988990. Sales of around €23.2 million. Sales in December 2024 were €28.791 million.

Great find; the report by the Senior Investigator from the Information Commissioner's Office makes for a very interesting read. While I have some sympathy for Insight Statistical Consulting's (Company A) concerns about their methodology being put in the public domain, it is difficult to see any valid reason for NTMA's reluctance to release the report. The stated reasons sound like complete bs and defensive scaremongering. Difficult not to conclude that they have something to hide. I have long had concerns about the randomness of the results. It will be very interesting to see the report if and when it makes it into the public domain. It also makes me wonder if further FOI requests are worth considering.

I found this cryptic statement by NTMA quite odd:

The state agency admitted that the winning numbers in the weekly draw are published, but claimed the exact structure of a prize bond number, the letters that are not used in those numbers, and the alpha prefix associated with certain types of bonds are not known to the public.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to test all ranges to see what's missing, but there definitely are gaps. For example, no bond number commencing AA has won a prize in the last 4 years, suggesting that either (1) no bond numbers commencing AA were ever issued or (2) the entire range of 999,999 bonds (valued at €6.35m) was issued and all have been encashed. (The latter is possible given that AA would have been issued in the 80s or 90s and at the time there was no limit on holdings, so one person could have bought and subsequently sold the entire AA range). The only other gap I've located is bonds prefixed with the letter Q, none having won in the last four years. Again, this could be either that Q was never issued or all have been encashed. Note that QQ appears regularly among the winners.

I know that there were gaps in the early days, when bonds were preprinted and issued for fixed denominations from multiple sequences concurrently. But I can't think of any reason why there should be gaps in the last three decades (since computerisation was introduced). I have tested some of letters that are often omitted from registration codes, such as O, Q, l, I, V/W, M, to avoid misinterpretation but all of these are present apart from the gaps mentioned above.  

And its also difficult to see justification for this:

The state agency admitted that the winning numbers in the weekly draw are published, but claimed the exact structure of a prize bond number, the letters that are not used in those numbers, and the alpha prefix associated with certain types of bonds are not known to the public.

The only different "types of bonds" I'm aware of are those issued/denominated in IEP vs EUR i.e. pre vs post 1st Jan 2002. And those alpha prefixes are well known i.e. DL000001 onwards with a value of €6.25 having been issued in Eur, and anything before that with a value of €6.35 (IR£5) having been issued in IEP.

In any event it's difficult to see how any of this could enable a fraud to be perpetrated. My money is on NTMA having something to hide, not necessarily in respect of this report but certainly they appear to have an interest in blocking further FOI requests.

The Premium Bonds big winners for January 2026.

https://www.nsandi.com/prize-checker/winners

Nothing for me this week.

€50k gone to Cork. 10no. of the 20no. €1k prizes gone to Dublin.

That notice was still on the site until 12 January, gone 13th.

Nothing for me on Friday 9th.

What a difference a couple of percent makes !!

Premium Bond notional interest rate, currently 3.6%, historically:

The Prize Bond notional interest rate has been 1% for this entire period (since October 2023), and that was a huge improvement on the previous notional interest rate which was .35%