Is the ante bet worth it on Sweet Bonanza?
It costs a quarter more per spin and roughly doubles how often the bonus arrives. Whether that is a good deal depends entirely on what you are trying to get out of a session.
The mechanics, briefly
Switching ante on raises the cost of every spin by 25%. In exchange, the lollipop scatter appears roughly twice as often, so the free spins round triggers about twice as frequently. Published RTP is broadly similar in both modes.
That last point is the one people skip past. If the return is comparable, ante is not a way to win more. It is a way to restructure when the winning happens.
What it does to a real session
Take a $100 budget at $0.50 a spin. Without ante, that is 200 spins. With ante, each spin costs $0.625, so the same budget buys 160 spins — a 20% reduction in session length.
Against that, the bonus arrives roughly twice as often per spin. Net effect: you should expect more bonus rounds from the same money, delivered across a shorter session, with more of your total return concentrated in those rounds and less coming from base-game dribbles.
That is a genuine trade, not a trick. It suits someone who finds the base game tedious and is playing specifically for the bonus. It suits nobody who is trying to stretch a small budget across an evening.
The failure mode
The damaging pattern is switching ante on partway through a dry session. The reasoning feels compelling — nothing is happening, so improve the odds of something happening. In practice you are increasing your stake by 25% at the exact moment your bankroll is smallest, on the basis of a run of results that has no bearing on the next spin.
Decide before you start. Then leave it alone.
Ante versus bonus buy
Both are ways of paying to reach the bonus faster. Ante spreads the cost thinly across many spins and preserves the base game. The buy pays 100x up front and skips it entirely.
Ante is much gentler. A buy resolves your entire exposure in a single round, and readers consistently report underestimating how quickly repeated buys drain a balance. If you want more bonuses, ante is the substantially less dangerous route.
Verdict
Reasonable if you have decided in advance, understand you are shortening the session, and are playing for the bonus rather than for time at the machine. Not a way to improve your odds, and never a response to a losing run.