Easy to search the series
Casino Purple
A quick search for "bass" brings the whole family onto one screen, so comparing sequels takes seconds.
100% on your first deposit · code PURPLE100
Big Bass Bonanza: A Day at the River, With the Odds Written on the Bank
A plain five-reel slot about a bloke catching fish turned into one of the biggest franchises in online gaming. I've spent more hours on it than I'd like to admit. Here's what I've learned about why it grips people, and where the catch is.
Published: 24 September 2026 · By the Royal Casino Advisor editorial team
There's something very British about Big Bass Bonanza's appeal. It isn't glamorous. There are no gods throwing lightning or sweets exploding across a grid. It's a chap in a bucket hat, a lake, and a handful of fish with prices stuck to them. If the old pub fruit machine had gone fishing, this is roughly what it would have looked like.
It arrived in December 2020, designed by Reel Kingdom and released under the Pragmatic Play banner, and it has since spawned more sequels than I can comfortably list. Before you add to that total with your own money, it's worth understanding what the game is actually doing.
The Set-Up, Briefly
Five reels, three rows, ten fixed lines. Card royals at the bottom of the pay table, then a tackle box, a dragonfly, a rod and a float. The interesting symbols are the fish, each wearing a price tag worked out against your stake. In the base game those values are just decoration; they tease you with what the bonus could bring.
The scatter is the leaping bass. Three of them earn ten free spins; four earn fifteen; the full five earn twenty.
What Happens When the Fisherman Turns Up
Once the free games start, our man in the bucket hat turns wild. When he lands on the same spin as any fish, he collects the value of every fish on the screen. That's the moment the game is built around.
Then there's the ladder. Every fisherman you land is counted, and every fourth one retriggers the round with ten more spins and a bigger multiplier on everything he collects afterwards: first 2x, then 3x, then 10x.
I'll be honest: the 10x level is a bit of a unicorn. Getting there takes a dozen fishermen in a single bonus. The clips you've seen of enormous hauls almost always come from that final rung. The rounds you'll mostly get are two or three fishermen, a modest collection, and a polite "well, that was nice".
My rule of thumb after far too many sessions: judge Big Bass by how often you reach the first retrigger, not by the highlights. If you're not seeing that first 2x now and again, your stake is probably too high for your budget.
The Numbers Behind It
| The bits worth knowing | Big Bass Bonanza |
|---|---|
| Return to player, as published | 96.71% on the standard build |
| Top prize | 2,100 times the stake |
| How swingy | High |
| Scatters needed | Three for the bonus |
| On the market since | December 2020 |
96.71% is generous by modern standards, and it's partly why the game is so well liked. But, and I'll keep saying this, Pragmatic supplies other RTP builds too, and the casino chooses. Tap the info button in the game and read the figure before you commit a single pound.
A Budget That Doesn't Ruin Your Weekend
Big Bass is a slot where the number of bonus rounds you see matters more than anything else. So work backwards from spins, not from stake. I aim for around 250 spins a session.
- £25 to play with? That's 10p a spin.
- £50? 20p.
- The average cost of £25 of turnover at 96.71% is about 82p. That figure is a long-run average and tells you nothing about Saturday night, but it does show that a relaxed session at a small stake is cheap entertainment.
Where people come unstuck is chasing. A dry hour, a bump in stake to "force" the bonus, and suddenly a cheap evening isn't. Try the free demo if your casino offers one; watching a few bonuses end without a retrigger is the best cure for unrealistic expectations.
A quick word for readers in Great Britain: the UK market caps online slot stakes and doesn't allow bonus buys, so some features you'll see mentioned elsewhere simply won't appear for you. That doesn't change the core of this game at all.
Where to Cast a Line
Angling slots in the Big Bass mould are well stocked at the five casinos below. Which edition turns up, if any, varies by site and by where you live, so give the search bar a go. If you want the welcome offer, pop the code into the cashier before you pay in for the first time.
Slot-heavy lobby
ZeSlots
A lobby built around slots, where collect-style games get plenty of shelf space.
250% on your first deposit · code ZESLOTS250
Biggest first-deposit boost
Casino Winner
If you're following the 250-spin plan, tripling your first deposit stretches the evening further than any of the others.
300% on your first deposit · code WIN300
Slots between live rounds
YourWin24
Handy if you like a gentle fishing session in between live-dealer rounds.
250% on your first deposit · code YOUR250
Fish and football
Cas2Bet
Football and slots share a wallet here, which suits a Saturday of Premier League and a few spins at half-time.
100% on your first deposit · code CAS100
Picking Your Big Bass
I get asked this more than anything else about the series. My honest answers:
- The original. Start here. You can see exactly why each bonus paid what it did, and the ceiling is the least dramatic.
- Bigger Bass Bonanza. A four-row layout and chunkier fish values. A decent step up once you know the rhythm.
- Big Bass Splash. Random modifiers before the bonus make each round less predictable. More fun for some, more frustrating for others.
- Big Bass Bonanza Megaways. The collect idea on a variable-reel engine. Busier and swingier.
- Big Bass Hold & Spinner. No free spins at all; it's a respin-and-hold affair. A different game wearing the same hat.
- Big Bass Bonanza 1000. Higher fish values and a higher cap. More of the value is tied up in rare outcomes, so expect more bonuses that don't pay their way.
Things It Won't Do, Whatever the Forums Say
It won't "warm up". It doesn't remember the last hundred spins. Twenty spins of lonely fish don't make him any more likely on the twenty-first. Each spin stands alone, and that's as true at 11pm as it is at 11am.
Fancy another old-school five-by-three with an entirely different bonus? Have a look at my take on Book of Dead. For the studio behind the distribution, there's our long-standing Pragmatic Play review. Every game guide we've written is on the games hub, and our responsible gambling guide is worth five minutes of anyone's time.
Frequently asked questions
What is the RTP of Big Bass Bonanza?
The standard published figure is 96.71%. Casinos can run other builds, so check the info screen in the game itself.
What's the trick to the Big Bass bonus?
There isn't one, but the mechanic is simple: the fisherman is wild during free games and scoops up any fish values in view. Each set of four fishermen buys ten more spins and lifts later catches to double, triple and finally ten times.
What's the top prize?
2,100x your stake on the first game in the series; a few of the follow-ups allow more.
Who actually makes Big Bass Bonanza?
It was designed by Reel Kingdom and is distributed by Pragmatic Play.
Where should a newcomer to the series start?
With the 2020 original: the most readable, and the gentlest ceiling.
Which casinos stock fishing slots of this kind?
Casino Purple (PURPLE100), ZeSlots (ZESLOTS250), Casino Winner (WIN300), YourWin24 (YOUR250) and Cas2Bet (CAS100) all carry angling-themed collect slots; the exact titles vary by site and country.
18+ only. Gambling should be entertainment, never income. Please play responsibly and read our responsible gambling guide.