Chapter 5 of 9

Ante, Super Spins and bonus buys

The original Sugar Rush had one extra button. Its newest sibling has five. Here is each of them, what it costs, its RTP from the rules screen, and what happened when we pressed it.

All the options at a glance

Compare those RTPs with normal play: 96.50% in the original and Xmas, 96.53% in 1000 and 96.58% in Super Scatter. Every option sits within a tenth of a percentage point of normal play. None of them is a trick that makes the game pay better; each one changes how and when the money arrives.

Buy Free Spins (100x)

The bonus round straight away, for 100 times your bet. The game then lands 3 to 7 scatters at random, so you get 10, 12, 15, 20 or 30 spins like any naturally triggered round. In Super Scatter the button is switched off while the Ante is on.

It is the most popular button in the series, and also the easiest way to spend a lot quickly. What our 60 regular buys (15 per game) looked like:

Out of 60 buys, 12 paid back their price. The typical (median) buy returned between an eighth and a little over half of what it cost. That is not the game being unfair, it is the RTP of a high-volatility round arriving in lumps: most rounds return little and a few return a lot. If you buy, decide in advance how many buys you can afford to lose entirely.

Super Free Spins (500x)

Sugar Rush 1000 and Super Scatter sell a premium version of the round for 500 times the bet. Scatters land at random as usual, but every one of the 49 cells starts at x2. The first explosion on any cell takes it to x4.

Two details. In Sugar Rush 1000 the Super buy's RTP (96.44%) is a little lower than the regular buy's; in Super Scatter it is a little higher (96.55% against 96.50%). And because it costs five regular buys, its results should be compared with five regular buys, not one. Our ten Super buys:

• Sugar Rush 1000: 55.4x, 103x, 201.4x, 218.3x and 746.5x. One of five paid back 500x. Best cell x512.
• Super Scatter: 126.9x, 454.4x, 886.7x, 2,042.2x and 2,968.1x (that one with a 100x Super Scatter prize). Three of five paid back 500x, and two rounds pushed a cell to the x1,024 cap.

Ten rounds is far too few to call one buy better than the other. What they do show is the different shape: no Super round returned less than 55x, while 60 regular rounds produced plenty of single-digit results.

Ante Bet (Super Scatter only)

The Ante multiplies your spin cost by five: at a $2 base bet you pay $10 a spin. In exchange, according to the rules, "the chance to win free spins naturally is 10x higher", because more scatters are put on the reels. The Buy Feature is switched off while it is on. RTP 96.56%.

Ten times the trigger chance for five times the price sounds like a bargain, but the RTP says it isn't one: the Ante's 96.56% is just under normal play's 96.58%. The game balances the extra triggers elsewhere. What the Ante does is turn a session into more frequent, smaller-looking bonuses at a much higher spend per minute. It is a different way to play, not a cheaper way to get bonuses.

Note that this is not the familiar "+25%" Ante from many Pragmatic Play slots. It is five times the stake.

Super Spin 1 and Super Spin 2 (Super Scatter only)

Both are base-game modes that seed the grid with multipliers before the candies land:

• Super Spin 1, 10× the base bet: random cells start each spin with random multipliers from x2 to x128. RTP 96.50%.
• Super Spin 2, 250× the base bet: all 49 cells start each spin at x32. RTP 96.52%.

The multipliers last until that spin's tumbles end, like any base-game spot. We spent one Super Spin 2 spin to see it: $500 at a $2 base bet, one five-bear cluster over x32 cells (x160 in total), $96 back. One spin proves nothing about the mode, but it does show how much has to go right: a single small cluster, even over five x32 cells, returns a fraction of a 250-bet stake.

How to think about any of these buttons

1. Price it in base bets. A buy is 100 or 500 spins' worth of money in one go; Super Spin 2 is 250 spins' worth every spin. Our bonus-buy calculator turns that into real money at your stake.
2. Check the RTP of the mode, not the game. They are all on the rules screen and all close to normal play.
3. Expect the median, not the mean. Most rounds return much less than the average, which is carried by a few big ones.
4. Set the number of buys before you start. Chasing a loss with "one more buy" is the most expensive habit this series can feed. Our responsible gambling page has practical limits that work.

Questions about bonus buys and special bets

How much is the Sugar Rush bonus buy?

100 times your bet in all four games. Sugar Rush 1000 and Super Scatter also sell Super Free Spins for 500 times the bet.

Is buying the bonus worth it in Sugar Rush?

It doesn't change the RTP much (96.50% to 96.55% depending on the game and option), so it isn't better or worse value on average. It concentrates risk: in our test, 12 of 60 regular buys paid back their 100x price and the typical buy returned 13x to 57x.

Which Sugar Rush games have an Ante bet?

Only Sugar Rush Super Scatter. Its Ante costs five times the base bet and makes free spins trigger naturally ten times as often, with the Buy Feature switched off.

What is the difference between Super Spin 1 and Super Spin 2?

Super Spin 1 costs 10 times the base bet and starts random cells with x2 to x128 multipliers each spin. Super Spin 2 costs 250 times the base bet and starts all 49 cells at x32 each spin. Both are only in Sugar Rush Super Scatter.

Can I buy the bonus everywhere?

No. Some regulated markets don't allow bonus buys, and casinos there show the games without the button. The demo always has it.