Feature buy UK rules

Feature buy UK rules in one paragraph

A feature buy (also sold as a bonus buy) lets a player pay a fixed price, usually a large multiple of the stake, to skip the base game and go straight into a slot's bonus round. On slots licensed for Great Britain you won't find that button. The reason is a Gambling Commission news item published on 17 January 2020 under the title Games warning for online operators (opens in a new tab). The regulator said it had found six operators offering "feature buy-in" on slot-style games, reminded every online licensee to check its games against the existing technical standards, and reported that all six had taken the feature down.

That is the whole of the documented position. There is no stand-alone licence condition, and no line in the technical standards, that uses the words "feature buy" or "bonus buy". What exists is a warning that pointed to two standards the feature risked breaching, followed by the industry dropping it for British customers. This page sits within our wider UK casino rules and regulation hub, and our explainer on bonus buy slots covers how the mechanic works in markets where it is still sold.

Accurate wording: since a Gambling Commission warning in January 2020, feature buy-ins are not offered to British players. Calling it a statutory ban or a licence condition goes further than the published sources.

What a feature buy is and why regulators noticed it

In an ordinary slot you reach the free spins or bonus game only when the right symbols land. With a buy option, the game shows a price beside a button. Press it and the bonus starts immediately, with the purchase price taken from your balance instead of the normal spin stake. The price is set so that, on paper, the bought round returns something close to the game's usual return to player figure. The money at risk in one click, though, can be many times bigger than a single spin.

The Commission's January 2020 warning picked out exactly that point. It said the feature let consumers stake significant sums to reach a bonus without playing the initial stages of the game, and gave the example of one game that charged more than £3,000 to enter its bonus feature. To put that in proportion, £3,000 is 600 times today's £5 maximum stake on an online slot for players aged 25 and over, and 1,500 times the £2 limit for 18 to 24-year-olds.

Bought bonus against a natural bonus

The two technical standards behind the feature buy warning

The Commission didn't announce new law in 2020. Instead it pointed operators at the remote technical standards they already had to follow as a condition of holding a licence. Two were named.

• RTS 3A says an explanation of the applicable game rules must be easily available to the customer before they commit to gamble. A buy option that changes how much you can stake, and on what, has to be clearly explained up front.
• RTS 14A sits in the responsible product design section and says products must not actively encourage customers to chase losses or increase their stake. A button offering to swap a run of losing spins for a single expensive shot at the bonus is the kind of design that standard is aimed at.

The glossary entry on RTS explains how these numbered standards are organised. The current RTS 14 responsible product design page (opens in a new tab) is also where the later slot speed, turbo and loss-celebration rules live. Read it today and you won't find "feature buy", "bonus buy" or "gamble feature" anywhere in the text. That absence is why we describe the position as an outcome of the 2020 warning rather than a named prohibition.

Is feature buy banned in the UK? How the sources differ

Ask whether bonus buys are "banned" in Britain and you will get different answers depending on who you read, because the original notice was written as a reminder rather than a new rule. Three accounts from January 2020 show the range.

The CMS legal update on feature buy-ins (opens in a new tab) reads the notice as a firm instruction, while trade press stressed that nothing new had been written into the rules. Both can be true at once. A regulator saying a feature is likely to breach a licence standard is, in practice, enough for licensed operators and game studios to remove it. Six years on, the practical result is the same as a ban: a British player on a licensed site has no way to buy a bonus. The legal label, though, is a warning tied to existing standards.

Why the UK position on bonus buys exists: the maths of one click

The concern is speed and size of spending, not whether the bonus is fair. A bought round can carry a normal theoretical return, but it compresses a large amount of staking into a single decision. Standard expected value maths shows the cost: expected loss equals the amount staked multiplied by the house edge.

Take an illustrative game paying back 96%, so a 4% edge. A £3,000 purchase, the price the Commission highlighted, carries an average expected loss of £3,000 × 4% = £120. But the average hides the spread. Bonus rounds are where most of a high-volatility slot's return is concentrated, so a single bought bonus can easily return a small fraction of its price. A player who has just lost and buys again to win it back is doing exactly what RTS 14A tells designers not to encourage.

Compare the time it takes to stake the same amount

Since 31 October 2021 a British online slot has had to leave at least 2.5 seconds between the start of one spin and the next, under RTS 14D. That puts a floor under how fast money can go through the reels. The table uses that minimum and assumes nothing is won back, purely to show how much staking time a single purchase replaces.

Those minutes matter. Each spin is a fresh moment to stop, and the game design rules are built around keeping those moments. A feature buy removes them in one press.

Who the feature buy position applies to

The warning went to online operators licensed by the Commission, and through them it shapes the games studios supply for the British market. Many slots are built once and then configured for different countries, so the same title can look slightly different here: the British version is the one without a buy option, and its RTP can also differ from versions released elsewhere. That is why we always say to check the game's help screen for the figures that apply on the site you are using.

• Covered: online slots offered by Commission-licensed operators to players in Great Britain.
• Different rules: the warning concerned slot-style games; table games and live dealer games have their own requirements, set out on our live casino rules page.
• Outside the system: unlicensed offshore sites that still show buy buttons offer none of the Commission's protections, so we never name or link them.
• Northern Ireland: the Gambling Act 2005 and the Commission's rules cover Great Britain; Northern Ireland's gambling law is separate and has no full online framework.

What feature buy UK rules mean when you play a slot

In practice the rule shows up as an absence. You start a slot on a licensed British site, and the panel that would show a buy price elsewhere simply isn't there. Bonus rounds still exist and still pay the same way; you reach them by landing the trigger symbols during normal paid spins. Everything else you see on screen follows the other UK design rules.

1. Open the slot and read the paytable and rules screen, which RTS 3A says must be available before you commit to gamble.
2. Note the RTP shown in the help screen, as the British version can differ from other markets.
3. Pick a stake within the limit for your age: £5 a spin at 25 and over, £2 at 18 to 24.
4. Spin manually: autoplay has been banned on UK slots since 31 October 2021, so each spin needs a fresh press.
5. Expect the bonus only when the trigger symbols land, since there is no option to pay your way in.
6. Watch the net position and session time on screen, and stop when you reach the budget you set.

If you're used to overseas game footage on video sites, this can be confusing. Streamers often show buy prices that simply don't appear on British versions. Our answer to whether you can buy bonus rounds on UK slots covers that gap.

What the UK feature buy position doesn't cover

Because feature buy is sometimes lumped together with other slot features, a few things are worth separating out.

• Gamble features are not banned. The slot gamble feature, where you can risk a win for a chance to double it, is not mentioned in RTS 14. The Commission's own stake-limit guidance describes a player rejecting a prize offer for a chance at a larger one without staking any extra money. Whether a given UK game includes a gamble option is a game-by-game matter.
• Bonus games you reach naturally. RTS 14 guidance exempts bonus games that need no extra stake from the speed requirement, and the turbo ban in RTS 14E does not apply to them. It also does not ban "reveal-all" features.
• Free spins from casino offers. Promotional spins, like the ones our partners give for a qualifying slot spend, are a bonus from the casino, not a purchase inside the game. They are covered by the UK bonus rules instead.
• Demo versions. Free-to-play slots still need age verification, but they involve no stake, so there is nothing to buy.

How the bonus buy position fits with other UK slot rules

The 2020 warning came first, and a run of formal rules followed. Each one points in the same direction: slower play, smaller single stakes, and clearer information. The online slot stake limits are the clearest example. They apply per game cycle, which the Commission's slot stake limit guidance (opens in a new tab) defines as running from the start of a game until all stakes are lost or all winnings are paid, and further stakes within a cycle count towards the limit.

The guidance doesn't address paid bonus entry directly, since British games don't offer it, so we won't speculate on how a buy price would be counted. The arithmetic is still telling: the £3,000 example from 2020 is more than the £5 limit allows in 600 separate game cycles. Alongside that, the autoplay ban and the game speed rules set the 2.5-second floor and stop turbo and slam-stop features from shortening it.

Feature buy UK timeline

Bonus buy myths and the UK facts

If you notice yourself wishing you could pay to skip ahead after a run of losses, that urge is worth taking seriously. Our page on chasing losses explains why it happens and what helps, and deposit limits are a simple way to cap spending before you start.

Where to play UK slots without a feature buy

None of our partner offers involves buying a bonus. They are slot spin offers with fixed stakes and selected games, and 18+ and full terms apply to each. At Coral, new players aged 18+ who deposit and bet £10 or more on slots between 1 October 2026 and 1 February 2027 get 100 free spins at 10p each on selected games, to be accepted within 48 hours and used within 7 days, with no wagering on spin winnings; Neteller, PayPal, Paysafe, Skrill, prepaid cards and certain debit cards don't qualify.

PlayOJO gives new UK customers (excluding Northern Ireland) 80 free spins on Big Bass Bonanza at 10p each after a first deposit of at least £10, with winnings paid as cash and no wagering; it can't be combined with other offers. At Ladbrokes, new customers who deposit and spend £10 or more on slots get 50 free spins a day for 10 days (up to 500), worth 10p each on selected games, claimed by 23:59 each day and valid for 7 days, with no wagering; prepaid cards, PayPal, Paysafe, Neteller, Skrill and Moneybookers deposits don't qualify. Coral and Ladbrokes are both run by LC International Limited, so one person may not be able to open new accounts at both. For how to value spins like these, see free spins in the UK.

18+. Every casino game has a built-in house edge, so over time you should expect to lose what you stake. Set a budget before you play and stop when it’s gone: safer gambling tools and support. Free, confidential help: National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133.