The returns from Premium Bonds will always depend on how lucky you are, but will also depend on the interest rate applied to the bonds for the prize distribution, as well as the rules of the system.

With interest rates falling, the effective prize, or return rate, for Premium Bonds has also fallen. This is now down to 1.8% from double that a year ago.

A fall in rates you can live with, simply because rates around the world have fallen. However, there has also been an internal rule change whereby the odds of winning a monthly prize have been extended to 1 in 36,000. This means that, statistically, to win each month, you need to hold £36,000 in premium bonds. That win will then be any amount ranging from £50 up to the prize of becoming an overnight millionaire.

The last payout showed that 97.22% of the prizes were £50, with only 0.0024% being above £1000. This bias towards smaller prizes means that the amount of return will effectively always be far below the prize percentage.

What does this mean? It means - remember that Premium Bonds are the safest way to gamble and pay no tax, but you will be very lucky to be a millionaire from them.