Bonus buy: what you actually pays for

What the button actually buys

A bonus buy, sometimes called Buy Feature or Feature Buy, is a direct route into the game's bonus round — usually free spins or a collect round — for a one-time cost on top of your regular stake. You skip the base game and land directly in the part of the game where the big outcomes live.

That purchase is mathematically neutral in itself: a game engine that sells the bonus round for a reasonable price only charges for the value the round is expected to give, just like the base game's stake pays for its own expected return. It's not a way to beat the system. It's a way to pay more per round to avoid waiting for the system to trigger the round for you.

The price: why we don't write an exact figure here

Our own catalog data for inferno-slots indicates about a game has the Buy Feature function, not what the purchase costs in that particular game. The price varies between studios and between titles, and the only place where it always matches is the buy panel in the game you actually have open.

What generally holds true across the industry as a whole, regardless of our own pool: the buy-in usually falls somewhere between fifty and one hundred times the base bet. Treat it as a guideline, not a promise — and always check the exact figures before you click.

17 of 54 — how common is the feature in our pool

17 of the 54 inferno-slots about one in three of the titles we list have the Buy Feature Additional 14 games has the feature RTP range — the same title in several mathematical versions — and four of these have both properties at the same time, which means that the cost in theory can differ between operators running different versions of the same game.

The studios behind the feature in our pool range widely: from big names such as Fugaso and Pragmatic Play to smaller companies like Relax Gaming and Betsoft. There is no pattern where only one type of studio offers the button — it has become a standard component rather than a distinguishing feature.

RTP with and without buy button

The most common misconception is that a purchase would give a better return. In our own pool it's the opposite, albeit marginally: the average for the 17 titles with Buy Feature is 95,19 %, against 95,43 % för hela katalogens 54 spel. Skillnaden är för liten för att dra långtgående slutsatser av, men den motbevisar i alla fall antagandet att köp funktionen automatiskt kommer med en generösare procentsats.

The numbers are the providers' standard versions from our catalog data. Full feature list and volatility are listed on the respective slot page — start at the entire catalog or filtered under collections.

Want to test with real money? This site doesn't sell anything itself. The yellow button is an ad link to our partner casino — which games are available there and which purchase prices apply are determined by the casino, not by us.

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Three games to take a closer look at

Three of the titles in the table above show three different ways to construct a buyable game:

• Hades Inferno 1000 (Pragmatic Play). Highest cap in the selection, 151500×, and at the same time the lowest RTP of the six — a clear example of a high cap being paid for with a stingier percentage elsewhere in the model.
• Book of Inferno (Quickspin). High volatility and a cap of 5 798× in a classic exploration format — the bonus round is the whole point of the game, which makes the buy button more relevant here than in slower titles.
• Fang's Inferno Dream Drop (Relax Gaming). Lowest RTP in the selection, 94 %, but the same cap level as Hades Inferno 1000 — a reminder that RTP and caps don't always move together.

How to calculate whether it's worth it

The buy button doesn't change the game's mathematics. It only moves where on the timeline the cost is taken. Instead of paying a little at a time over hundreds of spins while waiting for the bonus, you pay the entire expected cost at once. That does two things: it makes the outcome faster, and it makes each individual decision more expensive.

• Convert to spins. If the buy cost is around eighty times the stake, a single buy corresponds to about eighty regular spins in the base game. Ask yourself if you would have played eighty spins in a row without expecting anything valuable — because that's exactly what a buy is.
• Lower your stake before you buy, not after. A full-bet buy consumes a significantly larger share of an evening's budget than the same number of regular spins would.
• Set a cap on the number of purchases per session, not just a fixed cash amount. Five buy-ins in a row can be gone in under a minute regardless of how big the bankroll is.

Four mistakes with the button

• Buying to «recoup» a loss. The buy price is fixed regardless of what happened earlier in the session. It does not compensate for anything.
• Comparing the purchase price directly with the base game's RTP. The two figures measure different things — the purchase cost is a one-off expense, RTP is a long-term average.
• Assuming that all purchases in a game cost the same. In titles with RTP range the buy price can differ between operators running different versions.
• Buying more rounds than your budget can actually handle. Four or five buys in a row often equal the cost of several hundred regular spins, compressed into a few minutes.