By David Field

While others may fritter their money away down at the horses or on the dog track, I have never been enticed to throw place my hard earnt cash on the outcome of a race. I prefer my betting excitement with more guaranteed returns. And that is why I have plumped for premiums bonds.

The anticipation of knowing every month that you have £100 of bonds entering the prize draw is sometimes too much for me to bear and the thought of walking off with the £1 million jackpot sends me giddy.

For those who aren't in the know, every month Ernie (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) selects 599,999 prizes ranging from £50 to £100,000 and one for the £1 million. And the beauty of it is that when you have had enough of chancing your luck every month, you can reclaim your initial stake, which can range from £100 to £30,000, and your only loss is any interest that you might have accrued from putting your money in a savings account or an ISA.

So why don't you put your money in a savings account or an ISA I hear you say? Well I do.. But while others might set aside a tenner or so for the National Lottery or a bet on the football each week, I put it in to the Premium Bonds to fulfil my inherent gambling needs.

And I'm not alone. According to the BBC, around 23 million people have taken up the bonds since their introduction in 1956 as the ultimate "risk-free" lottery. And according to National Savings, the average Premium Bond holder will normally make 3.1 per cent from their investment in the course of the year – and that's just the average. Do you know that the odds of you winning a £65 prize through getting four numbers right in the National Lottery are 1 in 1033? While a Premium Bond winner has a 1 in 24,000 chance of scooping a prize, the difference is is that the payouts are generally bigger. So that when your luck comes around, you really are raking it in.

That letter through the post used to be the only way of finding out if you had won and as I child I remember my heart leaping when the brown envelope used to arrive telling me what I had earnt that month. Now you can look it up the computer and find out within hours of the draw.

Did you know that there are around 500,000 unclaimed Premium Bond prizes worth a total of £30 million? They can be claimed at any time during your life so get your certificate out and find out whether or not you are rich!