Starburst is NetEnt’s 2012 space-gem slot, for years the most played online slot in the world: ten lines that pay both ways, no free spins and a wild that expands across a middle reel and re-spins the others. It returns 96.09% at its top setting with a 500x cap, and NetEnt restricts the game in Australia. The free demo below is a similar gem pokie, with no download.
Starburst runs on five reels and three rows with ten fixed paylines that pay both left to right and right to left, so a full line pays twice. Bet levels run from 1 to 10 and coins from 1 cent to $1, which puts a spin anywhere between 10 cents and $100. The default return is 96.09%, and NetEnt supplies five lower settings at 95.05%, 94.05%, 93.05%, 92.05% and 90.05% that operators can pick instead, so the figure in the game’s help screen is the one that matters. Volatility is low: something pays on about 22.6% of spins, a wild re-spin starts on roughly one spin in twelve, and the most a single spin or re-spin can pay is 500 times the total bet, which is 50,000 coins at the top bet level.
Starburst Pokies Characteristics
Set the bet level and the coin value and spin. A win needs three matching symbols in a row on a line, counted from the left reel or from the right reel, and only the highest win per line in each direction is paid. The seven symbols are five coloured gems, a red seven and a gold BAR, with the BAR at the top of the paytable. The Starburst wild only lands on reels 2, 3 and 4. When it does it expands to cover the whole reel, locks in place, and the other reels re-spin once for free. If another wild lands on a different middle reel during the re-spin it expands too and you get another re-spin, up to three wild reels and three re-spins in a row.
That is the complete feature list. There are no scatters, no free spins, no multipliers, no jackpot, no gamble and no bonus buy.
The official paytable is in coins per line at bet level 1. Multiply by the bet level for coins won, and divide by 10 for the win as a multiple of your total bet. Nothing pays for two of a kind.
Because every line pays both ways, five of a kind is paid twice: five BARs on one line return 500 coins at level 1, or 50 times the total bet. With reels 2, 3 and 4 all wild, every line is a five-of-a-kind in both directions, and a screen of BARs on reels 1 and 5 is the 500x maximum.
The re-spin is the whole game, so it is worth being precise about it. A wild on reel 2, 3 or 4 expands, the win is paid in both directions, and reels 1 and 5 plus whichever middle reels are not wild spin again at no cost. A second wild on another middle reel extends the sequence, a third gives you the full wild centre, and the sequence ends on the first re-spin that produces no new wild. The first wild arrives on about 8% of spins, so you will see the feature several times in a hundred spins, but a second and third wild in the same sequence are much rarer, which is why the big results on this game are uncommon and the small results are constant.
At 96.09% the game keeps just under 4 cents of every dollar over the long run. At 90.05%, the lowest setting NetEnt allows, it keeps ten, which is a big gap for the same reels, and it is the reason to open the help screen before you play anywhere new. Low volatility means your balance moves in small steps: at 10 cents a spin, $10 buys 100 spins and will last a long time, and even at $1 a spin the swings are gentle compared with a high-variance game. The flip side is the ceiling. Five hundred times the bet is the hard maximum and it needs three wild reels and BARs on both ends, so Starburst is not the game for a life-changing hit. It is the game for making a small bankroll or a free spins bonus last.
Those bonuses are worth a word. Because the maths is so flat, casinos use Starburst for no-deposit and welcome free spins more than any other title. The spins play at a fixed bet level, usually 10 cents, so 50 free spins is $5 of play with a 96% return and a 500x cap, and the wagering terms on the winnings matter more than the spins themselves.
NetEnt waited nine years to make a sequel. Starburst XXXtreme (2021) keeps the gems and the both-ways pays but moves to nine lines, high volatility and a return of 96.26%, or 96.45% with the XXXtreme Spins feature buy. Its wilds carry random multipliers from 2x to 150x that stack across reels to 450x, there is a random wilds feature, the buy costs 10x the bet for one guaranteed wild per spin or 95x for two, and the cap is 200,000 times the bet. It is the opposite of the original in every way except the look. Starburst Galaxy, announced in late 2024, moves the brand to a 7×7 cascading grid with a feature generator and a 3×3 wild. NetEnt and Gaming Arts also built a land-based Starburst for North American floors in 2025, paired with a new title called Starburst Supernova. If a lobby says plain “Starburst”, it is the 2012 ten-line game.
Starburst looks like an arcade cabinet from the 1980s: bright gems on a starfield, a synth soundtrack, a quick reel stop and an expanding wild animation that fills the reel in a burst of light. There is no story and no characters, which is part of why it has aged well. It was built for mobile early, runs in any phone or tablet browser, and has a quick-spin toggle and an autoplay of up to 1,000 spins outside the UK.
Starburst has never been on an Australian gaming floor; NetEnt is an online studio, now part of Evolution. The complication for Australians is NetEnt’s own distribution policy, which lists Australia among the territories where its games are not to be offered. In practice that means a casino can show NetEnt titles in its lobby and still hide or block them once you log in from an Australian address, and the official demo on NetEnt’s site is gated by jurisdiction. Among the offshore casinos we review for Australians, we could not confirm Starburst as playable from Australia at any of them, so treat a listing as a maybe until you have opened the game. If it is not there, the casinos on our list carry plenty of low-volatility gem games with the same expanding-wild idea from other studios, and third-party demo sites still let you try the real Starburst for free.
Starburst is the simplest well-made slot there is: one feature, one paytable, a 96% return at the default setting and a flat ride with a low ceiling. It suits short sessions, small stakes and free spins bonuses, and it does not suit anyone hunting a big multiplier. The RTP setting is the only thing to check, and for Australians the bigger question is whether the casino will let you open it at all; if it won’t, XXXtreme and Galaxy face the same restriction, and a non-NetEnt gem game is the realistic substitute.
96.09% at the default setting. Casinos can choose lower versions at 95.05%, 94.05%, 93.05%, 92.05% or 90.05%, and the figure is shown in the game’s help screen.
No. The only feature is the wild re-spin: a wild on reel 2, 3 or 4 expands, locks and re-spins the other reels, up to three times.
500 times the total bet, or 50,000 coins at the top bet level. It needs all three middle reels wild and BARs on reels 1 and 5.
A line win counts from the left reel and from the right reel, so a five-of-a-kind is paid twice and a three-of-a-kind can be formed from either end.
NetEnt restricts Australia in its distribution policy, so many casinos hide the game from Australian accounts. Third-party demo sites still offer free play.
No. XXXtreme is a high-volatility 2021 sequel with nine lines, wild multipliers up to 450x, a feature buy and a 200,000x cap.
