A fishing slot that saves its big wins for the free spins

Big Bass Splash is a fishing slot made by Reel Kingdom and powered by Pragmatic Play, which released it in June 2022. It runs on 5 reels and 3 rows with 10 paylines, at €0.10 to €250 a spin.

The fish on the reels carry cash values on every spin, but those values only pay during the free spins. There a fisherman wild collects them, and every fourth fisherman brings extra spins with a higher multiplier.

How the base game pays

Wins pay for matching symbols on a payline, counted from the leftmost reel. Most symbols need three or more, and the top symbol also pays for two.

Each line pays only its best win, and wins on different lines are added together.

There is no wild in the base game. The fisherman only appears once the free spins start, so outside the round the fish values are not paid.

When two scatters land

Three scatters start the free spins. When only two land, the game may step in with one of two random features:

• Respin: the reels holding the scatters drop one position and the other reels spin again, which gives a third scatter another chance. This only happens when both scatters still fit on the reels after the drop.
• Hook: a hook pulls one reel upward to show another scatter.

Neither feature is certain. The game's rules say it may happen, not that it will.

Free spins: where the fish pay

Three, four or five scatters give 10, 15 or 20 free spins. The round uses its own reels, and the fisherman wild can land on any of them.

Each fisherman that lands collects the value of every fish on the screen at that moment. With no multiplier yet, a fisherman landing with a 10x fish and a 25x fish on the screen collects 35x the bet.

Every fourth fisherman

The game counts every fisherman that lands and keeps the count for the whole round. Each fourth one retriggers the round with 10 more free spins and raises the multiplier on collected fish.

As Pragmatic Play's game page puts it, the first retrigger brings a 2x multiplier, the second 3x and the third 10x. After the third, the round cannot retrigger again.

The new multiplier starts with the extra spins, which play after the spins left in the current batch. A 50x fish collected at the 10x level pays 500x the bet, or €500 at a €1 stake.

Modifiers before the round

Before the first free spin, the game adds between none and five of these at random:

• More Fish: more fish on the reels.
• More Fisherman: more wilds on the reels.
• More Dynamites, Hooks and Bazookas: the three random events below happen more often.
• Start From Level 2: the round opens at level 2, with the 2x multiplier already on.
• +2 Spins: 2 extra spins at the start, and 2 more with every retrigger.

Random events after a spin

Three events can fill in what a free spin is missing:

• Dynamite: fishermen are on the screen but no fish, so fish with cash values may drop in.
• Hook: fish are on the screen but no fisherman, so a hook may pull a reel up to bring fishermen in.
• Bazooka: fishermen are on the screen but no fish, so every other symbol may change into something else.

Buying the free spins

You can buy the free spins straight from the base game for 100x your total bet, which is €100 at a €1 stake. The buying spin lands three, four or five scatters at random, which sets how many free spins the round gets.

Our data lists the same 96.71% RTP for a bought round as for normal play. That is a long-run average, and any single buy can return far less than its price.

RTP, volatility and the 5,000x cap

Our data lists an RTP of 96.71%, the same figure Pragmatic Play gives. Casinos choose which RTP version they run, so one may run a different setting. Check the figure at the casino you play at.

Over a very large number of spins, 96.71% means about €96.71 comes back for every €100 staked. One session can end far from that, up or down.

Volatility is medium in our data. On this site Big Bass Bonanza from 2020 is rated low, so Big Bass Splash swings harder, while Big Bass Trophy Catch shares its medium rating.

The top win is 5,000x the bet, which is €5,000 at a €1 stake. A free spins round that reaches 5,000x stops there: the win is paid and any spins left are lost.

The highest fish value is also 5,000x, so one fish can reach the cap on its own.

Our verdict on Big Bass Splash

Big Bass Splash keeps the base game plain and puts its weight on the free spins, where the fish values, the fisherman count and the multiplier decide the result.

It suits players who like a bonus round with several moving parts and can accept that the fish values pay nothing outside it. The random modifiers mean one round can start quite unlike the next.

Treat it as entertainment with a house edge: no round, bought or triggered, is sure to return its cost. The free demo above shows how it plays before you stake real money.