Reel Big Fish: Slot Overview

Before we dive into Reel Big Fish from LeoVegas owned Blue Guru Games, we started wondering: what’s the biggest fish ever landed? A bit of online digging led us to the International Game Fishing Association’s top five list, topped by a 1,208 kg great white shark caught in 1959 by Australian fruit farmer Alfred Dean. It’s the kind of fact that makes non-anglers ask how something that huge even gets onto a boat—do they haul it aboard or lash it to the side and tow it in? That question can wait while we cast a line and test Blue Guru Game’s fishing-slot spin on the genre, featuring money symbol collects, free spins, and bonus buys.

Reel Big Fish runs on a transparent 5×3 reelset hovering just under the surface. From this viewpoint, fish drift by in the lower part of the screen, while a boat and nearby land sit above the waterline. The sea is animated with rolling waves that gently rock the boat, and bubbles occasionally rise from the seabed, adding a touch of motion. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it clearly delivers the familiar fishing-slot vibe.

Getting started in Reel Big Fish means choosing a wager of 20 p/c to $/€200 per spin on tablet, mobile, or desktop. Rated as a medium volatile title, Reel Big Fish comes with four RTP configurations, where 96.51% is the top option, with 94, 92, or 90 versions used depending on the jurisdiction. The hit rate is strong, with just under 1 in 2 spins producing a win, paid when matching symbols land from the left across one of the 20 fixed paylines.

At the lower end of the paytable are fishing hook-styled 10-A card royals, paying 1.5 to 3 times the stake for five of a kind. Payouts climb to 3.75-50x the bet for five petrol cans, floaty light things, maps, or scuba gear. Helping to form combinations is the wild symbol, which replaces any symbol except scatters or fish symbols.

Reel Big Fish: Slot Features

As you’d expect from a fishing slot, there’s a money symbol feature, reminiscent of the mechanic Fishin’ Frenzy popularised years ago. In Reel Big Fish, it can trigger in both the base game and during free spins. In the base game, fish symbols carry values of 1-5 times the stake. Fish symbols award their cash prize for each wild symbol visible on the reels at the same time.

Fill The Boat Free Rounds

The captain symbol acts as the scatter, and hitting 3, 4, or 5 awards 8, 12, or 20 free spins, respectively. During free spins, meters appear above each of the five reels, displaying the current reel level from 0 to 3. Any triggering scatters increase the reel level they land on by +1. When fish land on a reel, they pay a prize based on that reel’s level, provided the level is above 0. The three fish tiers are: the silver fish paying 1-50x, the greenish fish paying 2-100x, and the reddy fish paying 4-200x the bet. Landing a scatter in the bonus round adds +1 to the relevant reel level and also grants one extra free spin. If a Golden Scatter lands, the reel level is maxed out and an additional spin is awarded.

Feature Buy

Press the bonus buy button, where available, to choose between three feature buy options. Option 1 buys a three scatter free spins trigger for 70x the bet (RTP 96.48%), Option 2 buys a four scatter free spins trigger for 130x the bet (RTP 97.02%), and Option 3 buys a five scatter free spins trigger for 275x the bet (RTP 96.07%).

Reel Big Fish: Slot Verdict

Blue Guru Games made a decent early impression not long ago with The Nemean Lion, but since then the studio has felt a bit like a fish flapping on the deck. Blue Guru Games haven’t even provided a backstory for Reel Big Fish, which is unusual given that storytelling is typically one of their strengths. Anyone hoping for an online slot spin on Hemmingway’s Pulitzer Prize winner, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, won’t find it here. Rather than a classic narrative about humanity versus nature, pride, and perseverance, this is a fairly no-nonsense fishing slot.

In practice, that means fish money symbols can be collected in the base game when wilds are also present on the reels. Free spins change the approach, because in the bonus round you no longer need wild symbols to collect fish values. Whenever fish symbols land (as long as the reel level isn’t zero), their value is paid out. Fans of fishing slots may like this method of delivering fish wins. Even so, it doesn’t seem designed for headline-making payouts, as the max win sits at a fairly typical 5,000x. Fishing slots aren’t exactly famous for enormous returns—aside from titles like Golden Catch or 4 Fantastic Fish—but it’s still worth noting.

Still, it’s a fishing game, so anyone who can’t get enough salty sea action on the reels may feel compelled to push off and see what Reel Big Fish brings in. It doesn’t do a great deal that the genre hasn’t offered before, though Blue Guru Games have introduced a few small twists to the usual template that could appeal to connoisseurs. For us, after a handful of trips out in Reel Big Fish and returning to shore, there wasn’t much pull to head back out again.