Big Bass Bonanza is the December 2020 fishing slot by Reel Kingdom and Pragmatic Play that started the Big Bass series. It plays 10 lines until the free spins, where a fisherman wild collects the cash value of every money fish in view, and every fourth fisherman adds 10 spins and lifts values to 2x, 3x and 10x. It returns 96.71%. Play the official Big Bass Bonanza demo below free.
Big Bass Bonanza has five reels, three rows and 10 fixed paylines. Bets run from 10 cents to $250 a spin, or 1 cent to $25 a line, with much lower caps at UK casinos. Pragmatic Play’s page gives a 96.71% return, but the game is supplied in several configurations and review sites also list 95.67% and about 94.6%. Volatility is high, though some sites call it medium-high. One review site puts the hit rate at 13%, about one win every 7.69 spins, and one database puts the free spins at roughly once every 113 spins. The most the game pays is 2,100 times the bet, which is $525,000 at the $250 maximum, and the same review site puts the odds of reaching it at 1 in 3,880,481 spins.
Big Bass Bonanza Pokies Characteristics
The base game is line wins and nothing else. Three to five matching symbols on one of the 10 lines pay, the float also pays for two, and there is no wild at all until the bonus. Money fish land in the base game showing cash values, but nothing collects them there, so they only count as a line symbol. The hooked bass is the scatter: three, four or five start the free spins, where the fisherman wild finally appears.
There is no bonus buy on the original. One review site tags a buy and a gamble option, but Pragmatic’s own page mentions neither and two databases say there is no buy; the buys arrive in later titles such as Big Bass Bonanza 1000. Outside the UK, autoplay runs to 1,000 spins with loss and win limits.
Line wins are multiples of the total bet for two (float only), three, four and five of a kind, as review databases list them.
No scatter pay is listed. Five floats on a line pay 200 times the bet, and a screen full of floats pays 2,000x across the 10 lines, close to the 2,100x cap. The fish’s line pay is separate from the cash value printed on it, which only the fisherman can collect.
Three, four or five scatters award 10, 15 or 20 free spins. The fisherman wild now lands on the reels, substitutes for the paying symbols and, each time he appears, collects the cash value of every money fish on screen. Fish carry 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x or 2,000x the bet. A fish that lands without a fisherman on the same spin is not collected, and a fisherman who lands with no fish in view can throw dynamite that turns random symbols into money fish.
The round depends on both landing together. Three 10x fish and one fisherman collect 30x; the same fish without him pay only their line wins. Each fisherman on a spin collects the full set, so two of them with the same three fish collect 60x, and that is where the bigger results come from.
Every fisherman collected fills a meter, and every fourth one retriggers the round for 10 more spins and raises the multiplier on fish values. Four fishermen give 10 spins at 2x, eight give 10 more at 3x and twelve give a final 10 at 10x. There are only three retriggers, so the round tops out at 50 spins: 20 at the start plus 30 from the meter.
The last step is the one that matters. At 10x a single 50x fish is worth 500x, so the biggest results tend to come after the twelfth fisherman, and a 2,000x fish, once multiplied, runs straight into the 2,100x cap.
At 96.71% the game keeps about 3.3 cents of every dollar over the long run; at 95.67% it keeps about 4.3 cents and at roughly 94.6% about 5.4, so the setting is worth checking. The volatility shows in the hit rate: with about 13% of spins paying anything, most base-game spins lose, and the free spins carry the return.
At 50 cents a spin, $50 buys 100 spins, slightly fewer than the 113-spin average between features, so a session that size can easily end without one. At $1 a spin the same $50 lasts 50 spins. No strategy changes these odds: the stake and the casino’s RTP setting are the only real choices, and bigger bets to chase the 10x level only make each miss more expensive.
Big Bass Bonanza went on general release on 14 December 2020 after an exclusive run earlier that month, and Pragmatic now calls Big Bass one of its fan-favourite series. The main follow-ups:
Other names in the series include Big Bass Return to the Races, Big Bass Halloween, Big Bass Splash 1000 and Big Bass Vegas 1000. If a lobby lists plain Big Bass Bonanza, it is the 2020 original reviewed here.
It is a light-hearted fishing trip. Pragmatic’s launch release calls the star a friendly fisherman, and the reels are full of tackle: the float, a fishing rod, a dragonfly lure and a tackle box, alongside money fish, a hooked-bass scatter and 10 to A royals. The fisherman only appears in the bonus, where he collects fish and throws dynamite, which gives the free spins a character the base game lacks. It runs in HTML5 on desktop, mobile and tablet.
As far as we could find, Big Bass Bonanza is an online-only game: no source mentions a cabinet version or Pragmatic Play machines in Australian clubs, pubs or casinos. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 bars online casino and pokie services for Australians, so any access is through offshore sites. We could not confirm the game at a specific offshore casino that accepts Australians, so availability varies and the lobby search is the way to check, along with the RTP setting. Pragmatic Play publishes an official free demo on its own game page.
Big Bass Bonanza suits players who like a simple base game and one clear goal: reach the free spins, then fill the fisherman meter. It does not suit anyone who wants frequent small wins or a feature to buy, since most spins pay nothing and the original has no bonus buy. The 2,100x cap is modest next to the 10,000x and 20,000x of later Big Bass titles, so players chasing size should look there. The one thing to check is the RTP in the information screen: 96.71% is a fair game, and the lower settings are noticeably worse value.
96.71% by default, the only figure on Pragmatic Play’s page. Review sites also list 95.67% and about 94.6% settings, so check the information screen.
Land three, four or five hooked-bass scatters for 10, 15 or 20 free spins. Every fourth fisherman collected adds 10 more, up to three times.
2,100 times the total bet, which is $525,000 at the $250 maximum stake. We found no documented record win.
No. He only lands in the free spins, so base-game money fish pay only as line symbols and their cash values are not collected.
Not in clubs or pubs, as no land-based version was found. Online, availability at offshore casinos that accept Australians varies, and Pragmatic Play publishes a free demo.
It has fish worth 2x to 1,000x, raises the cap to 20,000x, adds a hook feature from two scatters and offers bonus buys in some markets, at 96.51%. The original stops at 2,100x and has no buy.
