Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake Slot Review
Whether you are a big fan of the ‘Big Bass’ series or just love any game devoted to fishing, this title is made especially for you, absorbing the best features of the mega-popular line of ‘Big Bass’ gambles. There are Cash-Collecting mechanics in this slot, up to 30 extra Free Spins, a Prize Multiplier of up to x10, and several features designed to increase your chances for Bonus Game triggering and to make its profitability much higher. Can’t wait to get to know the rules of the game better? Then, keep reading our review with rules and detailed results of a 300-spin real-money gaming session.
Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake General Characteristics
- 10 pay lines
- 5 reels and 3 rows
- Extreme Volatility
- RTP: 96.07%, 95.07%, 94.07%
- Base Game hit frequency: 1 in 7 spins (14.29%)
- Free Spins hit frequency: 1 in 113 spins (0.88%)
- Odds for > x1,000 hit frequency: 1 in 6,245 spins
- Max Win hit frequency: 1 in 3,378,378 spins
- Bet amount: 0.1 EUR - 250 EUR
- Maximum win multiplier: x5,000
- Maximum win value: 1,250,000 EUR
- 10 main symbols
- Additional symbols: Fisherman Wild, Scatter, Money Symbol
Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake Bonus Features
There are not a lot of bonus features here, and the key one is Free Spin Round. That’s why rule explanations will not take a lot of time.
Money Symbols
These appear in both — the Base and Bonus Game. During the Base mode, Money Symbols partake in winning combinations, bringing up to x20 to the stake for five such pics on the pay line. Within Free Spins, these additionally bring Instant Cash Prizes thanks to the attached cash amounts they fall with.
Scatter
There are at least 3 Scatters landed at once you need to get to start Free Spins:
But if you have only 2 of those, instead of 3 or more, there is still a chance to activate the FS Round thanks to these two options:
- An extra Scatter randomly adds to a random place.
- Re-spins start, continuing until any of those two Scatters make it to the last, 3rd row.
Of course, if any of the landed Scatters from the beginning is on the 3rd row, respins will not start. Also, be aware that the maximum number of eligible re-spins is 2.
Free Spins
Before starting playing Free Spins, you will need to pick the type of the Bonus Game since there are as many as two of those. To make that mission done, you should make a choice, choosing any one among the 12 turned-back cards. Most of them hide the Regular Free Spins option, while just two — the Golden Lake version of the Bonus Game.
Regular Free Spins
The main distinction of regular Free Spins compared to the Base Game mode is gathering cash prizes attached to the Money Symbols with the help of the Fisherman Wild. Also, there are 30 extra FS eligible as a reward for collecting 12 Fisherman Wilds: each time 4 special symbols are collected, 10 FS are awarded to the gambler. On top of that, each time you get extra FS, the new Win Multiplier, and precisely in this order — x3, x5, and, finally, x10, provides. The Multiplier is applied only to the wins collected from the Money Symbols, using Cash-Collecting mechanics.
Golden Lake Free Spins
The main difference between the Golden Lake FS Round and the ordinary FS mode is the absence of other paying symbols, except for the Money ones. Because of that, there are empty positions available on the reels. Also, we want to note considerably bigger cash prizes carried over by the Money Symbols compared to the ordinary Free Spins. But in other aspects, the Golden Lake FS round is the same, delivering 30 extra FS and Prize Multipliers up to x10.
Money Symbols
These symbols have attached cash prizes with sizes from x2 to x5,000 by the bet. Due to that, during Free Spins, those give payments as due to win lines and using Cash-Collecting mechanics, which activates when Fisherman Wild appears.
Fisherman Wild
This symbol lands on any reel but exclusively within Free Spins. It doesn’t pay itself, yet substitutes paying symbols, except for Money Symbols and Scatter. Each Fisherman Wild accumulates cash amounts from Money Symbols separately. So, if there are several Wilds in view, those will pay multiple wins collected off the same Money Symbols.
Random features
Three features can randomly trigger within the Bonus FS Game of any type:
- If there is one or more Fisherman Wilds along with no Money Symbols, those last ones, all of a sudden, can appear in random positions.
- In case there are Money Symbols, yet no one Fisherman Wild, the last may land on a random reel due to the ‘Hook’ feature.
- If there are Fisherman Wilds on the screen but not Money Symbol, there is a chance of replacing all pics on the play grid, apart from Fisherman Wilds, with other pictures, which allows getting those currently absent Money Symbols.
All these features allow you to increase your possible win due to Free Spins.
Ante Bet
This option will cost x0,5 to the stake on top of the current bet and allows you to increase the chances of Bonus Game triggering. Yet, when this function is enabled, there are no opportunities to buy Free Spins.
Buy Free Spins
Also, you can buy Free Spins activation. There are two choices available to you:
- x100 to the bet — automatically start the Bonus Game, allowing you to pick regular FS mode or Golden Lake one using 12 back-turned cards.
- x270 by the stake — guarantees the Golden Lake FS Round will start.
Our Experience Playing Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake
To propose a maximally full-of-details review, we dared on real money playing this video slot using the €200 deposit. The stake per spin was just €1. The overall number of spins totaled 300, which allowed us to earn as much as €221.5. Let’s unveil how exactly that incredible result became possible.
During the 1st hundred spins, we reaped only 14 wins, whereas the lengthiest non-prize period was as many as 37 spins. Luckily, only four cash prizes turned lower than the stake, whereas the biggest amounted to €3. Yet, because of the absence of Free Spins triggering, after the 100th spin, we had only €119.1 on our game balance.
Within the 2nd hundred spins, there, at last, activated the Bonus Game that awarded us due to the guess-the-card mini-game 10 Free Spins of the regular type. Those brought us not much — only €33.9 since there wasn’t FS retriggering. The number of Base Game prizes decreased to just 7 (€0.2 — €19), 2 of which turned less than the bet. Unfortunately, the most elongated non-wins period totaled a record 41 spins. As a result, upon the 200th spin, the balance was just €93.4.
The 3rd hundred spins allowed us to indulge in Golden Lake Free Spins. Due to single FS retriggering, we had as many as 20 Free Spins at our disposal. That made it possible to earn precisely €350. Also, there were two relatively big regular wins of €17 and €25. The overall number of Base Game prizes, this time, was 16. So, after the 300th spin, we had €421.5. Hence, eventually, we got a profit of €221.5.
Here are detailed statistics:
In conclusion, we will note that because of the High Volatility of this gamble, sometimes you can face dozens of spins in a row without any wins. For instance, our record non-prize period in the Base Game was 41 spins. On the other hand, there are not many wins here that are lower than the stake level. Nevertheless, the Base Game hardly will allow you to get considerable income, so the only way to try to grab a big one piece is to wait for the Free Spin Round. The most profitable seems Golden Lake FS mode, and the chances to pick it is precisely 16,7% (2 out of 12 cards), which isn’t that small.
Fortunately, randomly awarded extra Scatters and guaranteed re-spins, when you got just 2 Scatters instead of the three minimal needed, are additionally getting you close to that happy moment of Bonus Game start. Despite relatively rare triggering, since, for instance, we got just 2 FS Rounds per 300 spins, Free Spins here are worth waiting for, given 30 extra FS and the Prize Multiplier up to x10.
Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake Verdict
So, in our opinion, this video slot can propose fun and profitable gameplay, but mostly thanks to the Bonus FS Game, which is generous on extra FS and Prize Multipliers alike. Also, besides two features that increase your chances of starting Free Spins, three more are designed to elevate your Bonus Game income. Due to all that, the game looks prospectively and, as shown in our little experiment, that is another ‘Big Bass’ video slot soldiered on by Pragmatic Play that, just like its predecessors, holds enormous potential to thrilling wins.
Yet, it is not without drawbacks, either. For instance, this slot, like many others, has a customizable RTP value that varies from 96.07% to 94.07%. Although even the smallest one, 94.07%, doesn’t seem critically low, yet try to choose the version of this slot with the best level of a ‘Return to Player’ value to guarantee more enjoyable gambling leisure time. Also, as you’ve noted already, there are not many big wins or sometimes even ordinary prizes during the Base Game. That makes the regular mode not that engaging. On top of that, Free Spins hit frequency is also not that high. And, finally, the maximum possible win is just x5,000 to the stake, which is not even close to the best offers of many popular video slots nowadays.
