Bonus Buy Slots – Play For Fun

The thrill of triggering a bonus round is one of the high points of playing online slots, as, after all, that’s where the magic happens with bigger multipliers coming into play, stacked symbols, progression meters, and insane higher volatility. Unfortunately, on occasion, the slots can be stubborn in landing those all-important scatters needed to activate the feature, which, as we all know, can be incredibly frustrating. However, things have changed, and thanks to the introduction of bonus buy slots, you can now land that potentially lucrative bonus feature on the very next spin of the reels.

Don’t worry if you’re new to the bonus buy slot or unsure how these games work. We have put together a guide featuring all of the information you’ll need to understand them, along with a comprehensive library of free bonus buy demo slots you can play with unlimited funds to see what each individual game and provider offers in this niche of online slots.

What is a Bonus Buy Slot?

Bonus buy slots are a type of game you can choose to play where you have the option to buy the feature round outright. To gain instant access to the bonus, you will be charged a fixed stake, which is a multiple of your current bet. These can range in price from a low of 50x, whilst studios like Nolimit City provide a tiered buy menu where different entry levels into the bonus round are offered, sometimes reaching highs of 2,000x.

Bonus Features & Mechanics

The feature buy option has been incorporated into many styles of online slot games, so you’ll encounter it in numerous titles that include many of your favourite mechanics and bonus rounds. These are some of the best:

• Hold & Win Bonus: Typically, three spins are awarded at the start of this feature. Each new special symbol that lands in the bonus will lock in place, resetting your spin count to three. Modifier symbols may also appear to enhance payouts, as seen in Relax Gaming’s Money Train 4.

• Megaways: It was Big Time Gaming’s White Rabbit Megaways where the bonus buy slot first made a name for itself. You’ll now find the option to buy the bonus in 100s of Megaways slots, where you’ll play with 100,000s of paylines and increasing multipliers.

• Collection Features: Made famous by Pragmatic Play and their Big Bass Bonanza slot, you’ll collect special symbols in the bonus round, advancing you along a win meter which can award more spins and increased multipliers.

• Feature Gambles: Will you be happy with your original feature buy, or do you want to risk it for more? The gamble option, found in slots such as Muertos Multiplier Megaways, gives you the opportunity to crank up the volatility of the bonus round before it starts. But beware, if you lose the gamble, the feature will come to an abrupt end.

Highest RTP Bonus Buy Slots

The number of bonus buy slots now available is huge and continues to grow by the day, so finding the best games in this genre could take you days or even weeks. However, we can help cut through this time as each game we list here on our platform ranks in each category it is associated with according to its Return to Player percentage rate. So, if you want to play bonus buy slots with a high RTP, you can find them in our table below, which refreshes each time a game has a high enough RTP to disrupt the current list.

Software Provider Game Franchises Featuring a Bonus Buy

• Print Studios: The guys over at Print have quickly built up a reputation for making highly entertaining slots, and their Royal Potato series has caught our eye. All releases include a bonus buy option, with Royal Potato 2 being our favourite title to date.

• Elk Studios: Could you imagine a world where dogs roamed free and were the dominant species on the planet? That’s the future laid out for us by Elk in their Nitropolis franchise, where a culmination of releases, which include a feature buy option, led to an epic finale and their end game Nitropolis 5.

• Push Gaming: Grid slots are now among one of the more popular styles of games you’ll encounter with a bonus buy, and one of the best collections in modern times is the Jammin Jar series. Whilst Push has gone on to make several successful titles with this theme, the pick of the bunch remains the original Jammin Jars slot, so make sure you look this one up, it’s a classic.

Bonus Buy Vs Natural Trigger: What’s Best?

This is a highly debated topic amongst many players, and opinion seems to be split. Yes, we do see max wins coming from a bonus buy, but from our extensive testing of the slots we review, it is easy to go 10 or 20 buys on these slots without ever seeing a profit. Obviously, this is just a small sample size, but it is a pattern we see repeatedly.

We are all entitled to express our views on this matter, but overall, from our own experiences testing and playing feature slots for real money, a natural feature trigger plays better than one that has been bought. Sadly, though, in some instances, game providers develop certain slots where the highest possible bonus features can only be achieved through buying them.

Bonus Buy Slots With a Feature Gamble

Gambling the volatility of your feature round has become a significant factor when playing bonus buy slots. The downside of choosing to gamble your initial trigger is that if at any time you lose, the feature can end without you having a single spin of the reels and losing all of your stake.

As many slots with a buy feature continue to be developed by providers, we have started to see various adaptations to the feature gamble and the possibility of not only gambling your free spins but the chance to increase your starting multiplier as well. Through these hybrid gambles, it’s possible to potentially stack the chips in your favour to a point where a considerable amount of extra free spins are awarded, a higher multiplier can be taken, or in the ideal scenario like the gamble wheel of Vikings Unleashed, both free spins and multipliers are maxed out to begin the feature with.

We recommend that if you do choose to gamble the bonus on any slots, you should do so with caution and have limits set in place. This will prevent you from overspending and, more importantly, stop you from chasing a bonus if you hit a considerable number of losses in a row.

Can I Buy a Bonus On Slots In The UK?

Players based in the UK can no longer access the bonus buy facility when playing an online slot. In October 2019, the UK Gambling Commission requested that online casinos remove the ability for UK players to buy a bonus feature on any slot or casino game to add more protection for vulnerable players who may go on to develop issues with gambling by playing high-risk games such as these. The UKGC further reiterated their stance in January 2020 when it reminded online casinos that offering such games did not comply with their Remote Gambling and Software Technical Standards.

If you’re playing with a small budget as a casual player, bonus buy slots will likely have little appeal to you as you can use all of your bankroll on one buy for it to return a minuscule amount, ending your session in a matter of minutes. Those with bigger playing balances or who have built up their money through winnings may be more inclined to buy features whilst gambling, as any losses incurred, might reduce their overall funds but wouldn’t bring their gameplay to an immediate end.

It’s hard to say definitively if buying bonuses is worth it, but the most crucial thing to remember is to play within your means and not to replicate anything you may have seen online. Remember that most slots with a feature buy are highly volatile, so whilst you could hit a maximum win, you may also have a bad run, not making any profit on your buys and exhausting your balance faster than you may have imagined.