Conspiracy Theories About Premium Bonds
As with most things that are connected with the government, conspiracy theories are generated to prove or disprove unfairness between two parties or plots to hurt the population. Premium bonds are not isolated from these kinds of attacks. Conspiracy theorists have accused the National Savings and Investments agency of defrauding the public and being bias in the way they hand out the prizes and pick out the numbers of the winning bonds. These conspiracy theories are meant to hurt the agency and they are being reported in blogs and other methods to bring the idea of premium bonds to a halt.
The National Savings and Investment agency has issued statements that debunk these theories and preserve their integrity. Their number generating machine, ERNIE, creates random numbers that correspond with the numbers on the bonds. Large drawings are held each month and some people believe that the number generating is fixed. One of the most bizarre theories is that some people believe that ERNIE is a super computer that knows how a person thinks. People have even sent ERNIE Christmas and Valentine Day cards to the computer in hopes that it will sway its picks. This is totally untrue; the machine is totally random and does not have the capacity to know anything.
Psychologists have made the assumption that even the employees of the National Savings and Invest agency does not even know how the numbers are picked by ERNIE. The people that make the theories have a intrinsic need to know how a process works and when they do not know, they will come up with ideas that make them feel more comforted. Ironically, most of the conspiracy theories come from people who have never won any of the cash prizes and they feel that they are not in control of the situation.
The maximum holding for premium bonds is fifty thousand pounds. A theory exists that only the maximum amount in the system will generate winners for those people only. If you do the statistics fifty thousand pounds in bonds has a better chance of winning than if you have just two or three thousand pounds invested in bonds. Again people with the lower amount of money invested are perpetrating the theory. With over a third of the population of Great Britain investing in the premium bonds system, some people may never win a cash prize nor see their investment grow.
There is a theory that only new premium bonds are winning. This may be true. Though the program has been going on for decades, there has been a surge of new buying since the one million pound prize was introduced. Again the numbers come into play, the more that people play, the less chance you will win a cash prize. As with any lottery system, the more people that play and save, the more people will lose.
The good thing is larger prizes and more money can be put into the system where people who win will make a larger profit. By doing the simple math, most of these theories are forever debunking themselves.
