-Removed-The odds of winning a life changing sum are remote - close enough to zero to be zero.
Traditionally, with enough bonds, the regular small prizes offered a sensible rate of interest all the same. The current rate of interest is, however, unfairly low and investors are, to my mind, being taken for a ride. I know this has to be taken in the context that many high street savings accounts are offering far less than 1%.
When I was paying a mortgage and borrowing to survive with my young family, interests rates were abominably high. In the Eighties, they would add a hundred pounds to the monthly mortgage payments without apology and without asking where I was expected to find that money. Now that I am debt free and retired with very modest savings, guess what, interest rates are next to zero.
-Removed-I have done. It's just a safe place to park the stuff as I have no mind for so called investment. Most months I get a £25 cheque which probably comes close to 1% tax free. Inflation has been about 5%.
I have sat through several interviews with financial advisers at more than one bank and emerged with the clear impression that I was being lied to and tricked. For instance I put money in an account with decent interest, which I could only hold for one year as it was mostly owed in tax, only to discover when it was too late that the interest had fallen to 0.6% after a few months, without telling me. I stated I was not prepared to invest anything in stocks and shares, so instead I was offered an investment whose return is based on a complex index of the value of .... stocks and shares. Since the market in financial assets is essentially random, some people will gain and some lose but whatever happens the banks will gain. They cannot lose since it is our money they are raking commission from, gambling with, and risking. When they claim expertise they are lying - there is no expertise that can predict the future prospects of any financial asset. So I look at my own best guess, which is that on average the British, European and American markets are at least more likely than not to crash and decide to invest in nothing.
Many years ago I "invested" $10k in a similar product called Kiwi Bonds, run by the NZ govt. After they'd run it a couple of years it was privatised, and eventually taken over by the ANZ Bank. Eventually I got my original investment back. I'd kept track over the years, and the many small winnings worked out to around 2% - at a time when banks were offering 9-10% to depositors. Even allowing for the tax benefit it wasn't a good investment for me.