There was a slight rise in the value of Prize Bonds sold last year, reversing four years of declining sales.
Prize Bonds to the value of €365m were bought in 2025, an increase of almost 4pc on the previous year.
The rise in sales of the bonds was likely due to higher proportion of sales now happening online.
The Prize Bonds fund last year was €4.41bn. This is down slightly on the previous year due to redemptions.
Some 458,870 prizes with a total value of €44.4m were awarded.
The total value of the prize fund is linked to the total value of Prize Bond holdings. An interest rate of 1pc is used to calculate the prize fund.
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There has been calls in the past for an increase in the payout for those who have Prize Bonds.
It was raised from 0.35pc in 2021 on the back of fall-off in sales.
Some financial advisers consider Prize Bonds to be poor value for money, with critics arguing that holding the bonds means forgoing interest and essentially buying a raffle ticket.
The Prize Bond Company said rise in sales by 3.9pc last year compared with the previous year reinforces the product’s longstanding appeal.
The company said the product is a unique and secure savings choice among retail customers who each week have the chance to win a significant number of prizes while retaining the value of their holdings.
However, founder of the Askaboutmoney.com website Brendan Burgess said in May the return on the bonds should be much higher than 1pc.
Such a low return meant they were not a suitable long-term investment, he said.
“People with long-term savings should be buying equity-based products where the return over time should be much higher than 1pc,” he said.
Anyone with Prize Bonds or other state savings products was losing a lot of potential return for the safety of a government guarantee, he said.
“But at least the low returns on state savings are better than the 0pc return on current accounts and the very low returns on most deposits in Irish banks,” Mr Burgess said.
Some 29pc of prize bond sales were made online following the launch of State Savings Online.
This is up from 25pc in 2024.
Post offices remain the primary point of sale, with over 45pc of prize bonds purchased via the network in 2025, the company said.
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Chairperson of the Prize Bond Company Debbie Byrne, said: “The Prize Bond fund was €4.41bn at the end of 2025, with gross sales of €365m up 3.9pc on last year.
“The opportunity to win cash prizes remains central to the product’s enduring appeal. We are also seeing more customers choosing to engage with us digitally, with 29pc of sales now online, while the post office continues to play a vital role as a trusted and convenient point of purchase.”
The unit price of a Prize Bond is €6.25 with a minimum purchase of four units, at a total cost of €25.
All eligible Prize Bonds enter a weekly cash draw with currently over 8,800 prizes.
Bond draws are held every week.
There is a top monthly prize of €500,000 in the last weekly draw of every calendar month, and a weekly prize of €50,000 in every weekly draw, along with thousands of other prizes.