Once upon a time, slot machines were as rudimentary as it gets – you pulled the ‘arm’, watched the symbols spin around mechanically and then hope that you landed a winning combination on your single payline.
But the online gambling boom in the early 2000s allowed developers to flex their creative muscle, and it wasn’t long before all manner of new slot game mechanics were being introduced – from multiple paylines and bonus features to collapsing reels and progressive jackpots.
One of the more controversial developments came with the release of bonus buy slots – a handful of games, sometimes known as ‘feature drop’ or ‘feature buy’, that enabled players to effectively purchase a title’s special features, in a bid to create more frequent, and more profitable, winning spins. Games like White Rabbit, developed by Big Time Gaming, became popular with online casino enthusiasts as a result.
It wouldn’t be long before bonus buy slots caught the eye of regulators, mind you, and they tended to take a dim view of such games, and they promptly took action.
So were bonus buy slots immoral, or should they have been fair game for gamblers?
What are Bonus Buy Slots?
As discussed, bonus buy slots are games that allow you to immediately purchase a slot’s special feature with your bankroll – you won’t have to spin the reels in a bid to trigger it ‘organically’.
The cost of buying into the special feature can be as much as 100x your standard bet, however it can work out to be more cost-effective than spinning the reels in traditional fashion – the random nature of online slots means there’s no concrete best course of action to take.
Triggering a bonus feature in normal play is a low frequency event, and sometimes a player can go through a whole session without getting to enjoy a round of bonus action – especially when playing high variance games. And so the argument for bonus buy slots is that they accelerate the individual to their ultimate destination.
However, there’s a counter-argument that is less edifying to consider….
Pros & Cons of Bonus Buy Slots
Bonus buy slots feed into our innate desire for instant gratification – the problem is that such a ‘win’ comes at a price.
As mentioned, buying into the bonus round can be an expensive pursuit, and remember there is absolutely no guarantee that you will win a big prize when playing a special feature – your ‘investment’ can, and often will, fail to yield a profit, even though players are induced to pay more to try and take a shortcut to the winning line.
That is the main reason why regulators, including the UK Gambling Commission, have been critical of bonus buy slots and eventually banned them altogether – more on that shortly. Needless to say, vulnerable players are seduced by the possibility of landing big wins quickly, and so end up spending more on bonus buys than they might through standard play. Sadly, their expectations of dazzling wins are infrequently met.
There is a counter-argument to put forward, though. By accelerating players straight through to the bonus round, it prevents them from hitting the spin button dozens of times per minute – it could ultimately save some, if not all, players money in the long run.
The bonus rounds also provide a higher RTP than standard gaming, with players able to enjoy enhanced returns that are simply not available during the traditional gameplay.
Ultimately, regulators have a duty to protect the most vulnerable of players, and they have decided on balance that bonus buy slots do more harm than good.
When Were Bonus Buy Slots Banned In the UK?
Between 2018-2021, the UK Gambling Commission began to impose a raft of rule changes that forced online casinos to alter their business practices.
They outlawed rapid re-spins – ensuring a minimum of a 2.5 second delay between each turn, while the auto-spin button was also forcibly removed from games housed at UK licensed casinos. These moves were designed to ensure players didn’t stake more than they originally intended in their gaming session.
We’ve banned autoplay features within slots games. The autoplay feature can lead to players losing track of their play. Plus, we have also banned slot spin speeds faster than 2.5 seconds. https://t.co/owFijwp14C
4/5 pic.twitter.com/IIuNAoEM3I
— Gambling Commission (@GamRegGB) February 2, 2021
Games were also banned from using congratulatory messaging or triumphant audio for a winning spin when a player had in fact lost money overall, while reverse withdrawals – which allowed players to cash out their winnings before changing their mind and keeping the funds in their account – were also outlawed.
It was back in 2018 that bonus buy slots were banned from UK soil altogether, although the regulator gave casinos a grace period to delete them from their sites that ran into 2019.
Of course, the absolute vast majority of operators abided by the new legislation, although the Commission was forced to pen a stern reminder in January 2020 after they found that six online casinos that held a UK licence were still offering bonus buy slots to their customers – including one game that charged an eye-watering £3,000 to unlock the special features.
“Gambling products must not actively encourage customers to chase their losses, increase their stake or increase the amount they have decided to gamble, or continue to gamble after they have indicated that they wish to stop,” their updated technical standards decree.
Why Were Bonus Buy Slots Banned?
The Commission’s main focus is on protecting the most vulnerable of gamblers, and evidently it’s that group that are most likely to be encouraged to play bonus buy slots.
On the face of it, buying into a game’s special feature straight away seems like a smart decision, but it could cost the equivalent 100 standard spins – or maybe even more – to do so.
And even then, there are no guarantees that the special features will yield one of the main jackpot prizes – or a return of any kind, for that matter. Some bonus buy-ins would yield a stash of free spins, but in some cases this would be as few as ten free turns, and those wouldn’t necessarily lead to winning spins either. If you have paid £100 for that privilege, you’d be left feeling rather short-changed.
Some players would argue that by buying in to the feature round they are increasing their odds of landing a big prize, which is true to some extent, although there’s no correlation between buying straight in and winning big.
And besides, the Commission has a responsibility to protect players – as we’ve already learned, they take a harsh view on any casino games that try to encourage players to spend more on gambling than they should.
Some online casinos simply did away with their bonus buy games altogether, while some slot developers worked behind the scenes to remove the mechanic from their titles – those games were allowed to be reinstated after passing the Commission’s rigorous testing.
Will Bonus Buy Slots Be Allowed In the UK?
It’s highly unlikely that any slot game that encourages players to spend money above and beyond the standard spin of the reels will ever be allowed at a UK casino again.
Stricter controls, enabled by the government’s White Paper review of the gambling sector, are expected in 2023 and beyond, and so any hope of a more relaxed regulatory environment can be forgotten.
Indeed, tougher rules are expected – included a proposed ban on online casino VIP schemes.
And so the possibility of bonus buy slots returning to the UK is remote to say the very least….