€25k invested in prize bonds

The reduction in interest rate was 30%. The expected return with average luck for €100K was 7 wins, €350 in any 52 draws. So the new return should be 5 wins, €250. The actual figure before was around €368 and 70% of that is €258, but we have to work in multiples of €50. It is a bit more complicated than that, with the change to the big prizes, but it serves as a rough guide.

I counted the real world return achieved by 22 million bonds, all less than three months old, in the 4 draws in February. AUJ to AVE inclusive.

Week 1. 124 wins average 5.636 per million. Highest AUN 9, lowest AUZ and AVB 2 each.

Week 2. 136, average 6.182. Highest AUW 10, lowest AUK 3.

Week 3. 152, average 6.909. Highest AVD 12, lowest AUW 3.

Week 4. 168, average 7.636. Highest AUN 14, lowest AUQ 1.

Total 580, average 6.590. Best performing AUN 36, worst AUM and AUU 22 each.

One million bonds worth €6.25 million, would win 52 x 6.590 = 342.68 prizes x €50 = €17,134. Dividing that by 62.5 to see how €100K would fare gives €274.14, a bit above the €258 figure, but still nearest to €250, 5 x €50.

The sample is too small to be any more accurate. I might repeat it in March, as it only takes a few minutes to do each week. All the prizes were €50, except in Week 1 AVE bonds won €1,000 and €500 both in Mayo. Those were brand new bonds about a week old at the time. And AUZ bonds won €1,000 today Week 4.

Using the figures to work out roughly the value of the fund. Those 22 million bonds won 580 prizes, 3.2888% of the 17,636 prizes in the month. 100% of the bonds would be 668,936,998. x 6.25 = €4.181 billion rounded, which would not be far off other estimations.

rebelle wrote: »

I would love to hear if people think that it's better to have bonds in larger lots instead of multiple smaller lots?

It doesn't matter what people think, it makes zero difference to the chances of winning.

rebelle wrote: »

I would love to hear if people think that it's better to have bonds in larger lots instead of multiple smaller lots?

It really doesn't matter. I buy 100 euro worth every year for my godson.
10 years of no wins and then 2x50 a few months apart last year.

Nothing for me again this week. Due a little something now to lift the spirits.
Well done Tuis. Enjoy. Delighted for you. And do the lotto too.

rebelle wrote: »

I would love to hear if people think that it's better to have bonds in larger lots instead of multiple smaller lots?

As dxhound2005 said, zero difference.

In theory there is no reason why there should be any difference. And in practice my holding comprises 4 x €50k batches (each a single cert) and the remainder of €53k which is made up of over 100 certs, many of these are reinvested winnings and dd purchases for small amounts. Over the course of 2019 and 2020 the performance of the latter was very much in line with the single cert batches. So you can take it that there is no difference in theory or practice.

I posted the comparative analysis here

dxhound2005 wrote: »

The reduction in interest rate was 30%. The expected return with average luck for €100K was 7 wins, €350 in any 52 draws. So the new return should be 5 wins, €250. The actual figure before was around €368 and 70% of that is €258, but we have to work in multiples of €50. It is a bit more complicated than that, with the change to the big prizes, but it serves as a rough guide.

I counted the real world return achieved by 22 million bonds, all less than three months old, in the 4 draws in February. AUJ to AVE inclusive.

Week 1. 124 wins average 5.636 per million. Highest AUN 9, lowest AUZ and AVB 2 each.

Week 2. 136, average 6.182. Highest AUW 10, lowest AUK 3.

Week 3. 152, average 6.909. Highest AVD 12, lowest AUW 3.

Week 4. 168, average 7.636. Highest AUN 14, lowest AUQ 1.

Total 580, average 6.590. Best performing AUN 36, worst AUM and AUU 22 each.

One million bonds worth €6.25 million, would win 52 x 6.590 = 342.68 prizes x €50 = €17,134. Dividing that by 62.5 to see how €100K would fare gives €274.14, a bit above the €258 figure, but still nearest to €250, 5 x €50.

The sample is too small to be any more accurate. I might repeat it in March, as it only takes a few minutes to do each week. All the prizes were €50, except in Week 1 AVE bonds won €1,000 and €500 both in Mayo. Those were brand new bonds about a week old at the time. And AUZ bonds won €1,000 today Week 4.

Using the figures to work out roughly the value of the fund. Those 22 million bonds won 580 prizes, 3.2888% of the 17,636 prizes in the month. 100% of the bonds would be 668,936,998. x 6.25 = €4.181 billion rounded, which would not be far off other estimations.

Excellent analysis, thank you.

Like Pbtracker, I was starting to wonder if my bonds had been deleted ! I've used your analysis as a starting point to challenge the possibility. I took the 5 x million number ranges that contain the larger batches I hold, and tracked the prizes for the last month.

Range|No of Prizes|Comment
AIC|22|1 x €10,000 and 21 x €50
AID|18|1 x €50,000 and 18 x €50
AIV|25|25 x €50
AIW|18|1 x €500 and 17 x €50
AMT|26|26 x €50
Total|109

I then followed your logic:

|
Number of prizes in month, notional 5m bonds|109
Number of prizes per year, notional 5m bonds (109/5*52)|1,133.6
Number of prizes per year, notional 1m bonds (1,133.6/5)|226.72
Value of prizes per year, notional 1m bonds (226.72*€50)|€11,336
Value of prizes per year per €100k (€11,336/62.5)|€181.38


The figure of €181 is 30%-34% less than the range €258-€274 you arrived at, however given that the ranges I selected are 2-3.5 years old and will have been reduced by repayments, a repayment rate in the region of 30% over this period doesn't seem unreasonable.

So I guess they haven't deleted these ranges, it just confirms that I am in a dry patch.

A somewhat pointless exercise, but the alternative was painting a doorframe, and I detest house painting so any prevarication was welcome.

I have the princely sum of €3600...I've been buying a batch of €300 every quarter for a few years now.

Sadly no wins yet.

Hibernicis wrote: »

It's interesting that you came back to the figure of €4.1bn. That figure first appeared in this article by Charlie Weston in the Indo at the time the prizes were restructured in January.

Agent Smith, in this post, calculated the fund to be €4,453m at the end of January, an increase of €421m during the month. Despite my scepticism at the time, when I calculate the end of January fund value based on the February prizes I come up with exactly the same number. Thinking about this, it is an extraordinary increase, but it certainly would explain the NTMA moving to reduce the prize rate to stop the inflow.

It will be interesting to see what the March prize looks like next Friday.

The newest bond to win on 04 January was AUS183638. On 05 February AVF230416. That would equate to sales of around €82 million. So that is the max the fund could have gone up in January.

The difficulty in us doing calculations is that the January figures included some element of it being 0.50%, and the following 11 months being 0.35%. Because the fixed amount for big prizes to be paid out later in the year comes into it even in January and February.

Thinking back to my 0.274% return instead of nearer 0.258% for February, that has some connection as well. I don't pretend to know how they went about it, but once the number of €50 prizes came down in January I knew it could not be simply a reduction in the number of bonds.

I own a few bonds that I received as gifts and have no interest in holding given the tiny payout (of which I've received nothing in over 5 years!). I did a quick look on cashing them in but I can only see a postal option. Is that really the only option? No way to just bring it into the post office even?

I got my new bonds today from the 26 Feb draw, AVQ 072142. Based on some rough calculations I am going to guess the number of €50 prizes in the March draws will be 4,440 up from 4,388 in February. We have no history to go on, with January being 5,724. I could be miles out.

Edit: I figure the max it could be based on sales is 4475. Encashments are unknowable, but I reduced that by 35 based on encashments in Feb 2018 and 2019.

€50 for me today.
2021 2x50.

lizardking123 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me, how many individual prize bonds are currently active? (Even approx) i have 22 million in my head but could be way off

In the region of 650 million

And again!

tuisginideach wrote: »

Only one €50 envelope to dispose of this week - honestly, I have no clue what's going on!


Interestingly in the months of Jan/Feb and first week Mar, these were my winnings:
2015: 1 x €50
2016: 1 x €50
2017: 2 x €50
2018:3 x €50
2019:1 x €50
2020:1 x €50
2021 9 x €50

No. of prizebonds hasn't changed much - some cashed in, some new ones bought, some swapped for new ones but very little difference overall.

It's certainly a record - on my history of PB wins!

Actually, the pattern is amazing - 8 X €50 over 6 consecutive weeks on this 'glitch'; July 2017 - 6 X €50 over 3 consecutive weeks (1, 3, 2); May 2016 - 5 X €50 over 4 consecutive weeks.

tuisginideach wrote: »

And again!

That’s an amazing run. Congratulations.

I have decided to do a weekly post in March for the number of wins by some bonds under three months old, and put the results together after week 4. It won't be all the same bonds each week

Week 1. 30 million bonds AUO to AVR inclusive. Total wins 173, average per million 5.767. Highest AVD, AVO and AVQ 9 each. Lowest AUR 1. All prizes €50.

173 is 4.363% of the 3,965 prizes awarded. Projected wins for one million bonds (€6.25 million) for 52 draws. 5.767 x 52 = 299.884 prizes x €50 = €14,944.20. Divided by 62.5 gives expected return on €100K of €239.91, nearest €250.