In a stroke of jaw-dropping luck, a Premium Bonds holder from Sefton has turned a measly £175 investment into a £100,000 windfall in the May 2025 prize draw. The National Savings and Investments (NS&I) announced the results on May 1, revealing this saver as the smallest bondholder to snag one of the month’s six-figure prizes. It’s the kind of story that makes you double-check your own account, just in case.
The winning bond, purchased back in November 2003, sat quietly for over two decades before hitting the jackpot. To put that in perspective, Kylie Minogue’s “Slow” was topping the UK charts when this bond was bought. Patience, it seems, pays off. Premium Bonds, a government-backed savings scheme, don’t earn interest but enter holders into a monthly prize draw with tax-free winnings. Prizes range from £25 to a cool £1 million, and this Sefton resident’s £175 holding—just a fraction of the £50,000 maximum—proved you don’t need a fat wallet to win big.
Elsewhere in May’s draw, a Suffolk saver with a £35,000 holding, bought in April 2017, also landed £100,000. Another winner from Kirklees bagged £50,000 with a £300 stake, while a South Gloucestershire bondholder matched that prize with a bond bought in March 2025, eligible for its very first draw. The odds of winning any prize with a single £1 bond are 21,000 to 1, but with over 2.2 million prizes dished out monthly, someone’s always celebrating.
NS&I’s scheme, running since 1957, lets savers hold between £25 and £50,000 in bonds, each £1 representing a chance to win. The May 2025 draw alone distributed over £450 million in prizes across the UK. For the Sefton winner, that £175 gamble from 2003 delivered a return most investors can only dream of—tax-free, no strings attached.
The NS&I confirmed all high-value winners on May 1, with full tables listing prizes from £1,000 to £1 million available on their website. Draws are conducted monthly using a random number generator nicknamed ERNIE, ensuring every bond has an equal shot. No further details on the Sefton winner’s identity were released, per NS&I’s privacy rules.