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Experienced Investor

Which county has the most Premium Bonds prize winners?

Which county has the most Premium Bonds prize winners?
Matt Browning
Written By:
Posted:
03/04/2025
Updated:
03/04/2025

More residents of Essex have won a cash prize in the monthly Premium Bonds draw than any other county in the UK, research reveals.

The Southern county has had the most Premium Bonds winners in the last year, with 10,263 lucky winners scooping a total of £30.2m, according to OLBG.com.

It means the chances of winning if you are from there are 4%, compared to 1.42% if you live in Gloucestershire or East Sussex.

Those areas have seen £10.8m and £12.6m awarded to residents with Premium Bonds respectively.

Kent is home to the second-largest number of winners with 9,216 bond holders, and Hampshire and the Isle Of Wight combined are in third place with 9,134 successful account holders.

Those counties had a total of £27.6m and £26.7m won in jackpot prizes, leaving residents with a 3.63% and 3.6% chance of winning a cash prize respectively.

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Outside of England, Wales is the likeliest country to live in to pick up a part of the jackpot, which totalled £412m in April.

There have been 4,630 winners from Wales, while there have also been 271 winners from Australia who are also eligible for a slice of the huge cash prize.

Overseas Premium Bonds winners

This is because customers can still enter the draw if they live abroad, as long as they have a National Savings and Investments (NS&I) account and a UK bank or building society account.

Meanwhile, the most popular month for winners was January, which represented 23,408 winners, compared to the least likely month of December, which had 17,347 winners who purchased their bond then in the last year.

This month, the two Premium Bonds millionaires were based in South Yorkshire and Hertfordshire, with the bond numbers 494WG724922 and 418AW560890 respectively.

While the location you live in has no sway regarding the chances of winning £1m with Premium Bonds, the amount you have in the funds does.

The maximum holding you can have is £50,000, and no interest is earned, but for every £1 in your pot, the better chance you have of winning.

However, in April, one winner in Hereford and Worcester had just a £300 holding but still won £50,000.

Top 20 winning counties

Rank County Number of winners
1 Essex 10,263
2 Kent 9,216
3 Hampshire and Isle Of Wight 9,134
4 Surrey 8,493
5 Outer London 8,132
6 Inner London 6,820
7 Hertfordshire 6,753
8 Devon 6,352
9 West Sussex 6,015
10 Dorset 5,240
11 Wales 4,630
12 Buckinghamshire 4,357
13 Suffolk 4,293
14 Lancashire 4,153
15 Wiltshire 3,952
16 Hereford and Worcester 3,828
17 Cambridgeshire 3,716
18 Derbyshire 3,692
19 Gloucestershire 3,615
20 East Sussex 3,597