Shortly after the clock strikes twelve, the messages start streaming in. ‘£75 for me,’ says one. ‘£100. I’ve broken my losing streak,’ another replies. ‘Nowt for us. Good luck to everyone else.’
They call it the Midnight Club. A group of Premium Bond superfans who meet online on the first and second working days of each month to be among the first to find out who has won the jackpot.
They also share tips on how to find out whether you’ve won – even before the prizewinners have officially been announced.
The Premium Bonds (Unofficial) Facebook group started in 2012 and now has 17,000 members. On the stroke of midnight when the results are announced each month, there is a flurry of activity.
They plan to meet tonight, following the February draw, says James Overall, a member of the group. Thousands of bond holders will rush to National Savings & Investment’s website eager to discover whether they are among the lucky winners before convening in the Facebook group.
Premium Bonds are the nation’s favourite savings product. Collectively 24million of us hold an incredible £134billion in the bonds, which are run by National Savings & Investment (NS&I), the Treasury-backed savings institution.
Unlike a standard savings account which pays a set rate of interest, Premium Bondholders are instead entered each month into a draw to win prizes ranging from £25 up to two £1million jackpots.
Each month, thousands of Premium Bond holders rush to National Savings & Investment’s website to find out if they have won big
James, who has about £25,000 in Premium Bonds and whose biggest win is £225, is a devout member of the club.
‘There are actually two Midnight Club meetings,’ he explains. ‘The first is at midnight before the full list of winners is announced.’
That is because holders do not have to wait until the full list of winners is released to find out if they’ve won a big prize.
The high value winners for prizes above £5,000 list is released the day before the main list.
It shows the area the winner lives in, the total amount of money they have in Premium Bonds and when the winning bond was purchased.
This Premium Bonds winners list is published by This is Money and on NS&I’s website a full day before accounts are updated on the smartphone application.
In the January draw, 2,849 bonds won higher value prizes, including 77 who won £100,000 and 154 winning £50,000.
NS&I hasn’t yet revealed the breakdown of the number of prizes for February’s draw.
However, last night it published the list of high value winners, with the £1million jackpot going to one bondholder in Central Bedfordshire and another in Liverpool. Both have the maximum £50,000 saved into Premium Bonds.
James Overall: I wish there were two draws a month, because after a couple of weeks you’re itching to go again
Winners are quick to share the news on the Facebook group, James, a local government officer, says. ‘It’s a really friendly community and it’s good to hear what people are doing with their money.
‘Someone posted a £10,000 win in the January draw, which was lovely to see. I would put half into savings if I won the £1million jackpot, then maybe pay off the mortgage and treat myself to a holiday or a nice car.’
Each month, James uses a separate, specialist website called pbprizes.com, which has a function that allows you to check the NS&I prize table against your own bond numbers to see if you’ve been lucky. It also shows you your probabilities of winning and how that’s changed over time.
The next night, the full list of prize-winning bonds is released and bondholders can use the NS&I website or app to find out if they have won any prize.
Premium Bonds Winners
| Prize | Area | Value of bond |
| £1,000,000 | Central Bedfordshire | £17,500 |
| £1,000,000 | Liverpool | £2,000 |
| £100,000 | East Riding Of Yorkshire | £10,000 |
| £100,000 | Kent | £18,025 |
| £100,000 | East Sussex | £150 |
| £100,000 | Warwickshire | £10,000 |
| £100,000 | South East Wales | £30,000 |
| £100,000 | Cambridgeshire | £1,650 |
More February 2026 winners
‘I wish there were two draws a month, because after a couple of weeks you’re itching to go again,’ says James.
James has held Premium Bonds since he was 10 years old. When he and his sister Zoe each inherited £1,000 when their uncle died, their dad put the money into the bonds and split any prizes between them.
‘I remember that being very exciting as a child,’ says James, 32, from Bourne End, in Buckinghamshire.
The odds of winning the top £1million prize are about one in 66 billion – you have a better chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning.
Despite that, Premium Bonds have gained a cult status with British savers, with millions living in the hope each month that their number could be called.
Savers can each put up to £50,000 into Premium Bonds, and every £1 buys one bond, which gets you a single entry into the monthly draw.
While Premium Bonds don’t have a set interest rate, they have a Prize Fund Rate, which indicates how much you can expect to win based on the amount of bonds you hold. This is currently 3.6 pc.
But there are no guarantees; an estimated two-thirds of bondholders have never won a single prize.
James says: ‘I know my money could do better in an Isa, but it’s not about that. I don’t play to win £25, I play because there is always the hope that you could be the person who wins something life changing.’
Patrice Lawrence: ‘It’s exciting. You think: am I going to become a millionaire today?’
Such is the excitement around the draw that NS&I sees a 2,700 per cent increase in website traffic on the day the results are announced. Use of its prize checker app increases tenfold. To use the app or prize checker online, you type in your holder’s number. If you are a winner, confetti flies across the screen and you are shown how much you’ve won.
In December, the number of calls to its customer support line increased by 29 pc in the first week of the month. Some 85 pc of callers were phoning to see if they had won.
Patrice Lawrence started holding Premium Bonds in 2021 after seeing them recommended by financial influencers on Youtube and Instagram. She liked that they were low risk and had easy access.
Patrice, 41, who is a solicitor in London, says: ‘I was saving for a loft extension so wanted to be able to access the money to pay the builders – but there was the hope of winning in the meantime.’
Patrice currently has £5,000 in the bonds and reinvests any money she wins. Her biggest prize was £500 in June 2024.
While she also has a stocks and shares Isa, a pension and a regular savings account, it is her Premium Bonds that bring the most pleasure.
As a night owl, she enjoys staying up late to join the Midnight Club on prize draw day. She says: ‘It’s exciting. You think: am I going to become a millionaire today?’
Impatient to find out, Patrice sometimes uses a hack suggested by other members of the group: shortly before midnight she uses the NS&I app to buy more bonds.
‘If you have, say, £49,000 invested, try to buy £1,000 more to take you up to the maximum. If you have won a prize it won’t let you, because that would take you over the limit,’ she explains. ‘It’s not always accurate but a lot of people try it just before midnight to try and find out sooner.’
Her other top tip is to have an unusual amount invested. ‘If you don’t have a round number, it can be easier to tell from the prize list if it’s you that has won,’ she says.
This is because the list of bonds winning higher prizes on NS&I’s website includes details about how much each winner holds in Premium Bonds. Most people hold round numbers, such as £45,000 or £50,000, which means it is easier to spot if you have won if you have an unusual amount.
She says: ‘It’s why a lot of people hold £49,950 rather than the maximum £50,000.’
Jane Coates-Bridgewater (centre) joins The Midnight Club to check her family’s Premium Bonds every month
Keep your details up to date is her other advice; there is an estimated £111million in unclaimed Premium Bond prizes, including 11 prizes of £100,000.
And while some fans believe that churning your bonds (taking your money in and out regularly) improves your chances of winning, others say that investing as much as possible is the simplest way to boost your odds.
Many believe that each Premium Bond never wins a prize more than once and that newer bonds are more likely to be lucky, however NS&I has said this is a myth.
The Treasury-backed bank says that Premium Bonds prizes are totally random — any £1 bond has exactly the same chance of winning as any other £1 bond.
The average Premium Bond holding is £5,406, according to wealth manager AJ Bell, but the average holding for those who won a prize in the past year was £23,397.
Jane Coates-Bridgewater, from Pontefract in West Yorkshire, started using Premium Bonds when she had children and wanted to save some money for them.
Some 30 years later, she, her husband, her daughters Jessica and Beth, 31 and 32, and her three grandchildren, Millie, 8, Daisy, 4, and Bobby, three months, all hold Premium Bonds.
But it’s Jane who joins the Midnight Club to check the family’s numbers every month.
The 59-year-old who is retired and formerly worked in social services, says: ‘It’s a family thing, but I’m the one who is obsessed. It doesn’t matter where I am in the world, I’ll always check.
‘I wait for that explosion of confetti on the screen that shows you’ve won and it feels fantastic.’
The most Jane has won is £500. If she hits the jackpot, she plans to pay off her daughters’ mortgages, go on holiday and donate to the hedgehog charity where she volunteers. As well as the chance to win big, Jane likes that Premium Bonds are risk-free because they are backed by the Treasury.
She says: ‘I used to have an Isa but you don’t get that monthly feeling of: this could be it for me. Once it’s over I’m a bit disappointed that I’ve looked and it’s 30 days until the next draw. But there is always the hope of getting a big win.’
Have you won a big Premium Bond prize? We’d love to hear your story, email us at editor@thisismoney.co.uk.
