The lucky man from Kent bought the winning bond in July 2017 and had £50,000 invested. He scooped the £1m prize with bond number 298BE137181.

He becomes the 22nd £1m jackpot winner from Kent.

October’s second millionaire is a woman from Humberside. The winning bond number 222AT412192 was bought in June 2014 and is part of a £50,000 holding. This is the third Premium Bonds millionaire from Humberside.

There were 3.92 million prizes up for grabs in the October draw, worth £112m.

There were 96.1 billion eligible bonds for the draw. Since the first draw in June 1957, 499 million prizes have been drawn with a total value of £21.1bn.

Premium Bonds prize payments are changing from December’s draw

NS&I announced last month that it would begin to phase out the use of prize warrants (like a cheque) from December 2020, with the February 2021 Premium Bonds draw the last time that prize warrants will be issued by NS&I.

Customers can instead get any prizes they win paid straight into their bank account or automatically reinvested up to the maximum £50,000 in Premium Bonds.

The change ensures that all Premium Bonds prizes will be paid more quickly and more securely.

Jill Waters, NS&I’s retail director, says: “We will be phasing out the use of prize warrants from the December 2020 Premium Bonds draw. While we understand that there is a real affection for prizes being received by post, paying prizes directly to customers bank accounts means that winners can receive prizes quicker, easier and more securely. We will continue to notify of prize wins but this will be by email or text message, or winners can chose to be notified by an Alexa-enabled device.

“Part of the enduring magic of Premium Bonds is the thrill of finding out that you’ve won a prize, and this is something that will not change, as I’m sure our this month’s lucky jackpot winners in Kent and Humberside will to testify to. Huge congratulations to them both on winning this life changing sum of money.”

Premium Bonds customers need to take action

To ensure that they continue to automatically receive any Premium Bonds prize wins, customers that still receive Premium Bonds prize warrants need to take action by providing NS&I with their bank and contact details.

Customers can easily provide NS&I with their bank account details if they are registered for NS&I’s online service and have an email address or mobile phone number. Customers should visit nsandi.com and click ‘Log in’, go to ’Your profile’ and select ‘Your prize options’.

Customers not currently registered to manage their account online should visit www.nsandi.com/online-registration where they can register for NS&I’s online and phone services. From there, they will be able to manage their prize options.

Odds of winning reduce from December

Last month saw NS&I announce a raft of rate cuts to its savings accounts.

The odds of any £1 Premium Bonds number winning any prize will also fall from 24,500 to one, to 34,500 to one from the December draw.

This will take the Premium Bonds fund rate from 1.40% to 1% and will take the number of prizes down from 3.85 million in September’s draw to an estimated 2.85 million in the December draw.