The first lucky winner scooped the £1m jackpot with bond number 522MP682337 and they come from Hereford & Worcester.

This winner holds the maximum £50,000 and bought their winning ticket in December 2022.

They become the eleventh winner from Hereford & Worcester.

The second winner is from Essex and saw their bond number 535RC655361 come up, after only buying the golden ticket in April 2023.

They had £23,700 in Premium Bonds and their win makes them the 22nd millionaire from Essex.

Extra £30m up for grabs in August’s draw

In this month’s draw, savers had more chance of winning, as the prize fund rate increased to 4% and the odds improved from 24,000 to one, to 22,000 to one.

This meant that each £1 bond had the best chance of winning a prize in almost 15 years, with an extra £30m added to the prize fund. An extra 455,390 prizes were also up for grabs, taking the total to just over 5.5 million, with prizes worth £404m dished out to winners.

While the £1m jackpot winners find out the good news on the first working day of the month, for everyone else, you’ll have to wait until Wednesday 2 August. You can use the nsandi.com prize checker, official prize checker app or an Alexa-enabled device from tomorrow. To check, customers will need their Premium Bonds holder’s number to use the website and the NS&I number or holder’s number to check via the prize checker app.

However, you can get a sneak peek of the ‘high value winners’  (£5,000+) here today, which gives the prize value, the winning bond number, the holding, area and the date the winning bond number was purchased.

In total for the August draw, there were 121.3 billion eligible bond numbers. Since the first draw in June 1957, ERNIE – the Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment – has drawn 637 million prizes worth a total value of £26.8bn.

Unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes

In Hereford & Worcester, there are 19,033 unclaimed prizes worth £668,775. The largest unclaimed prize is worth £100,000 and this was from the August 2014 prize draw. The oldest unclaimed prize in Hereford & Worcester is from the August 1965 prize draw, and is worth £25.

In Essex, there are 50,596 unclaimed prizes with a total value of £1,530,625. The largest unclaimed prize is £10,000. There are two of these in total and they were won in the December 2007 and March 2016 prize draws. The oldest unclaimed prize in Essex is from February 1964 and is worth £25.

The best way for customers to ensure they receive their prizes is to have them automatically paid directly into their bank account or reinvested into more Premium Bonds.

More than nine in ten prizes are now paid this way which is quicker and more secure than waiting for a cheque. if you think you may have an unclaimed Premium Bonds prize, check the NS&I’s online prize checker or the prize checker app.

‘Both winners waited under a year to win’

Jill Waters, NS&I retail director, said: “Congratulations to our two millionaires from Hereford & Worcester and Essex. Both of our winners waited under a year to win the jackpot, with one winning after eight months and the other after just four months. This shows that big prizes can be won at any time, regardless of how long you’ve had your Premium Bonds. We hope each of our millionaires enjoys their winnings.

“The Premium Bonds prize fund rate has now hit 4%, the highest it’s been since 2007, meaning we’ll be paying out over £404m in prizes this month to lucky winners up and down the country.”