paidAffiliate disclosure. The partner link in the masthead and in the band beside the copy on this page is a sponsored link to a partner operator, and this site may be paid if you open an account through it, at no extra cost to you. It carries rel="sponsored noopener" and opens in a new tab. A desk about what a round costs should not leave its own funding unsaid: one link funds the site, no game, studio, operator or person is named, rated or recommended anywhere on it, and it prices no real product.
The Bought Round / one round
one bought round, carried through
One bought round, carried through
Every desk in this series carries one invented case from start to end, and this is it: a feature buy of 100 times a 1.00 base stake, on a game that publishes a 96.5% buy return and a 5,000-times maximum win. The round in this case returned 240.00. Following the one round through the price, the return, the cap and the terms is the whole desk in miniature.
Desk spec
- base stake
- 1.00
- the buy price
- 100.00
- the buy return
- 96.5%
- average return
- 96.50
- this round returned
- 240.00
- counted toward wagering
- no
The control platesample A / 1,200 extra-stake rounds, four controls
feature buy100x stakeBuys one whole round at a fixed price. The stake moves from 1x to 100x in a single decision; the return is the bought round's, not the base game's.
ante bet+25% per spinRaises the price of every spin a little and the stated chance of reaching the feature a lot. It makes a non-triggering spin dearer and can make the route to the feature cheaper.
super stake2x per spinDoubles the stake for roughly double the quoted chance. It changes the size of the bet and the variance, not the expected cost of reaching the feature.
gamble0 until a winCosts nothing to be offered, then stakes a win on a double-or-nothing. It is the only control here that can take money already won and put it back at risk.
Direct answerOne bought round: a base stake of 1.00, a price of 100.00, a published buy return of 96.5% and so an average return of 96.50 with a 3.50 edge. This particular round returned 240.00, a 2.40 times return on the price, against a 5,000.00 maximum win it did not reach. The stake counted toward no wagering requirement.
The round, start to finish
the game and the control
base stake 1.00
the price of one bought round 100.00
= 100x the stake, set by the game
the pricing
the buy return 96.5%
average return 96.50
the edge on this buy 3.50
this round
it returned 240.00
return on the price 2.40x
above the price by 140.00
the maximum win 5,000.00 (not reached)
the terms
counted toward wagering no
the one-line summary:
paid 100.00, expected 96.50, got 240.00,
ceiling 5,000.00, nothing counted
What the one round shows
Three things fall out of the single case. First, the price and the return are different figures: the reader paid 100.00 and expected 96.50, and neither equals the 240.00 that happened. Second, the cap did not bind here but could have: 240.00 is well under the 5,000.00 ceiling, and the rounds where the cap matters are exactly the rounds that do best. Third, the terms ran alongside the game: the same round that returned 240.00 advanced no wagering requirement, so a reader on an offer would have played it for nothing toward the bonus. A single round cannot show the edge; the edge lives in the class. It can show how a round is priced, which is what this page does.
What one round can and cannot show
- It can show the price and the return side by side.
- It can show the cap against the actual result.
- It can show how the terms treat the stake.
- It cannot show the edge, because one result is a single draw from a distribution.
- It cannot be a template for any real game, which sets its own price and rules.
This is an invented round on invented samples; it names no real game, studio or operator and claims nothing about how any product behaves. A single outcome says nothing about a return figure, which is a long-run average; the round is here to show the arithmetic, not an expectation.