The lucky woman from Nottingham invested £37,575 and bought the winning NS&I Premium Bond just over a year ago in January 2019. The winning bond number is 350ZA848545.

The second big winner is a man from Surrey who scooped the life-changing £1m prize after investing just £4,014 back in October 2002. The winning bond number is 050RE855967.

In the February 2020 draw, a total of 3.4 million prizes worth £99m will be paid out.

There were 85,346,436,256 eligible bonds for this month’s draw.

Since the first draw in June 1957, ERNIE (the number generator) has drawn 469 million prizes with a total value of £20.2bn.

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Unclaimed prizes

According to NS&I, there are more than 1.7 million unclaimed Bonds worth £64m.

Premium Bonds may go unclaimed for reasons including if NS&I doesn’t hold your current address details or if you had bonds bought as a child but have since forgotten about them.

Customers can make sure their details are up-to-date and choose to have any future prizes paid directly into their bank account, by registering to manage their Premium Bonds online at nsandi.com/register.

Bond holders can also check whether they’ve won by going to our website www.nsandi.com, or through its prize checker app available on iOS and Android, and through Alexa-enabled devices.

‘Special way to save’

Jill Waters, NS&I’s retail director, said: “Premium Bonds offer a special way to save that can surprise and delight in equal measure, not just for our two jackpot millionaires, but for all those who have received one of over three million tax-free prizes paid out this month.

“Since reducing the minimum investment to £25 in February of last year we’ve seen an encouraging rise in the number of new younger savers, with almost half of all those who made an initial investment of less than £100 now aged under 25.

“Premium Bond holders can choose to have their prizes paid directly into their bank account, or to be reinvested up to the maximum holding amount of £50,000. Money put aside each month can quickly build into a small nest egg with no extra effort and the added bonus of a potentially life-changing prize.”