About Bonus Buy Slots
A Bonus Buy (also called Feature Buy or BuyBonus) is a slot mechanic where you pay a fixed multiplier of your bet — typically 75x, 100x, 125x, or 200x — to skip the base game and trigger the bonus round directly. You exchange the variance of waiting (and the boredom of dead base spins) for a known cost and a guaranteed bonus.
The math behind Bonus Buy is regulated. Studios are required to publish the RTP of the Bonus Buy variant separately from the base game. In most cases the Bonus Buy RTP is slightly higher (96.5% to 97.5%) than the base game (95.5% to 96.1%), because the developer can model bonus delivery cost more tightly. This is a real edge for players who only care about the bonus round.
It is also a real risk. A 100x bet Bonus Buy on a $1 stake costs $100 — your entire session bankroll evaporates in one click if the bonus underperforms. And bonus rounds on Extreme volatility games regularly return less than 50x bet. The variance is identical to natural triggering, just compressed in time. Players who buy 10 bonuses in 10 minutes feel the variance much harder than players who hit 10 bonuses across 4 hours.
Different studios price Bonus Buys differently. Pragmatic Play standardizes at 100x bet across most flagship titles. Hacksaw offers tiered buys (a Mini buy at 25x, a Mid at 75x, an Extra at 200x). Nolimit City prices buys based on the volatility of the bonus — Mental is 200x bet, San Quentin xWays Enhancer is 500x. ELK Studios pioneered the multi-tier X-iter menu where you can buy enhancements as cheap as 2x or extreme variants at 500x+.
A few jurisdictions ban Bonus Buy entirely. UK Gambling Commission rules removed it from UK casinos in 2023. Most European, North American, and crypto-casino markets still permit it. Always check that the buy variant is offered at your operator before planning a session around it.
Strategic use of the Bonus Buy filter: start with bonusBuy=Yes, then sort by Max Win to find titles where the bonus is heavily top-loaded (these are the buys with the highest skew — high bust risk but real spike potential), or layer Min RTP 96.5% to find buys with the friendliest long-run math (typically Pragmatic and Push Gaming flagships).