What does the bonus buy button actually cover?
A bonus buy — often labelled feature buy in the game menu — lets you skip the road that leads to the bonus round. Instead of waiting for the scatter symbols to line up, you pay a one-off price and open the feature straight away.
The button usually sits beside the reels in plain sight, and the game asks you to confirm once you tap it. After the confirmation the purchase price comes off your balance, and the bonus round then plays out exactly as it would have done had it triggered in the usual way.
It matters that this is not a separate, more generous version of the bonus. The same feature starts under the same rules; only the run of spins leading up to it is left out.
A purchase, then, is neither a trick nor a loophole. It is a convenience feature the studio built in, and its maths has already been counted into the theoretical return of the game.
How the purchase works in practice
The price is almost always shown as a multiple of your current stake rather than a fixed sum. Push the stake level up and the cost of the buy rises in the same proportion, so it pays to set the stake first and only then look at the price tag.
The size of that multiplier varies from game to game and follows the character of the bonus. Where the feature rarely starts on its own, the multiplier tends to be higher; where it lands more often, it is lower.
Plenty of machines offer more than one buying option. One opens the plain bonus round, the other hands you a boosted version with extra scatters or a larger starting multiplier, and costs more to match.
Some titles have a middle road: a bonus-chance mode that grants no instant entry but makes the feature start more often in exchange for a raised stake. Formally that is not a purchase, though the logic behind it is much the same.
The feature turns up most often on higher-variance, bonus-driven machines, among them the Megaways-style titles. On classic, few-line games you meet it rarely, because there is no separate main round to open.
How the price and the spread of results connect
This is where a bonus buy parts company with ordinary play, and where most of the misunderstandings start. The comparison below does not set numbers against each other; it sets out how the two approaches behave.
| Aspect | Base game with spins | With a bonus buy |
|---|---|---|
| Weight of one decision | the stake size, across many small steps | the purchase price, in a single large step |
| How the balance drains | gradual, easy to follow | in jumps, round by round |
| Spread of outcomes | bonus and base game blend together | almost entirely down to the bonus round |
| Playing time on the same budget | longer | far shorter |
| What you can influence | the pace and the stake | only when the feature starts |
The heart of it sits in the third and fourth rows. Because the price of a buy is a multiple of the stake, the same budget covers far fewer decisions, and the outcome concentrates into a handful of bonus rounds.
In practice that means stronger swings. A weak purchased round shows up on the balance immediately, whereas in the base game the same loss would have spread across dozens of spins.
Is the RTP of a purchased bonus different?
Yes, it happens, and most studios state it openly on the game sheet. Many machines list the theoretical return of the base game and of the purchased round separately, because the two are not necessarily identical.
The direction of the difference is not uniform. There are titles where the buy figure sits slightly higher and others where it sits lower than the base game value. That is why no general rule holds about a purchase being mathematically the better or the worse decision.
What is worth doing is simple: open the game's information panel and check whether it publishes a separate figure for the feature. If only one number appears, it usually covers the game as a whole.
We wrote about reading RTP figures and volatility in more detail in our slots guide. Every figure mentioned here comes from the game's provider; the catalogue data was checked on 2026-09-16.
Why is the button missing from some games and markets?
Two different reasons sit behind it, and they are worth keeping apart. One is simply a design decision: a studio does not build the feature into every machine, because on classic layouts or low-volatility titles it serves no purpose.
The other reason is regulatory. In several European markets the authority limits or outright bans features that speed up play in exchange for payment, and a bonus buy falls into that group. For those markets studios ship a version of the same game without the purchase.
It follows that the same title can behave differently on two sites. If you cannot find a button you saw in a video, that is not a fault: the release meant for your market most likely does not include it.
The third layer, often forgotten, is the bonus terms. Operator bonus rules frequently exclude or limit feature purchases while you are playing with bonus money, so always read that clause before you deposit.
When it makes sense, and when it does not
It makes sense when the bonus round itself is what interests you, not the road to it. When you are getting to know a new title, a purchase shows you in minutes what the feature can do, which might otherwise take several hundred spins.
In demo mode this is particularly useful. With play money the purchase price costs you nothing, the workings of the bonus round can still be learned, and that is the cheapest way to make up your mind.
It makes no sense, on the other hand, if your aim is to stretch the session out, or if the budget is tight. In that case a purchase gives you the opposite of what you want: fewer decisions, bigger swings, a shorter run.
And it makes no sense as a way of clawing back a loss. The result of a purchased round still rests on a random number generator, so a good outcome is no more likely simply because the previous round went badly.
The limits that are non-negotiable with this feature
Since a single click takes a multiple of the stake, your own limits are not a matter of comfort here. It is worth stating in advance how many purchases fit into one session, and holding to that number even when a round turns interesting.
For setting deposit, loss and time limits, the player limits page is a practical starting point. If you feel that pressing the button is slipping out of your own control, our responsible gaming page collects the self-exclusion and time-out options.
The slots section at Dukat.bet comes with a Slots Bonus 500% up to €3,000 + 15% Cashback offer. Before you claim it, read through the wagering requirement, the maximum bet rule and whether the bonus terms permit feature purchases at all.
A slot is entertainment, not a source of income, and its outcome cannot be influenced. Only players aged 18 and over may play, and only with an amount whose loss would cause no trouble.