NS&I’s Premium Bond prize draw picker Ernie chooses 255 winners this 12 months named… Earnest and Ernie!
On the first working day of every month, more than 22million Premium Bonds holders eagerly wait to hear if they have won a big Premium Bonds prize.
The winners are chosen by NS&I’s Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment – or Ernie for short – a computer the size of a grain of rice which uses quantum technology to sift through 133billion Premium Bonds numbers in 20 minutes.
Premium Bond holders have long wondered if there are certain knacks to winning a prize, from where you live to what your name is.
Our recent analysis revealed that David and Susan are the most popular names of Premium Bonds winners over the last five years.
Ernie, NS&I’s random number generator, picks Premium Bonds winners from 133bn bonds numbers
But it can’t be said that Ernie shows favouritism, choosing just seven people with the name Ernie to win Premium Bonds prizes this year.
Ernests had more luck, with 248 people named Ernest – often shortened to Ernie – winning Premium Bonds prizes in 2025.
The name Ernie was famously used by comedian Benny Hill for a milkman character he portrayed. His song, Ernie, The Fastest Milkman in the West, topped the charts in 1971.
Fastest Milkman: Benny Hill as Ernie who had a UK number one with his novelty song
In 2025, Ernie picked out 72million Premium Bonds prize winners.
The random number generator has been drawing numbers since June 1957, and since then has drawn 803million prizes with a total value of £39billion.
Every £1 bond entered into the Premium Bonds prize draw has the same odds of winning, but the more you hold the more likely you are to win a prize.
You can invest between £25 and £50,000 in Premium Bonds with the average amount kept in Premium Bonds being £5,613.
Prizes range from £25 to £1million and are tax free.
Premium Bonds Winners
| Prize | Area | Value of bond |
| £1,000,000 | Norwich | £35,000 |
| £1,000,000 | Cornwall | £20,000 |
| £100,000 | Cambridgeshire | £6,500 |
| £100,000 | Cheshire West And Chester | £19,000 |
| £100,000 | East Sussex | £11,500 |
| £100,000 | Cornwall | £50,000 |
| £100,000 | Wiltshire | £5,000 |
| £100,000 | Wiltshire | £50,000 |
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