Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza at Paddy Power

The Big Bass series of slot games have dominated UK online casinos over the last few years.  There have been Halloween and Christmas versions of the game, horse racing themed versions to coincide with the Cheltenham Festival, Megaways versions, a crash game, a bingo game – pretty well everything you can think of.  Except, that is, for a progressive jackpot.  But now that has all changed with the launch of the Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza, which is currently exclusive to Paddy Power and other Flutter sites with a “Play It Here First” banner.

Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza – The Games

Five Big Bass games are included in the Jackpot Bonanza system:

• Big Bass Hold & Spinner
• Big Bass Floats My Boat
• Big Bass Master Classic
• Big Bass It’s A Whopper
• Big Bass Surf’s Up

If you think some of these titles sound unfamiliar, you’re right!  Hold & Spinner and Floats My Boat are jackpot versions of previously released games in the series and the other three are brand new.  They are all pretty similar apart from some minor differences in game features, with Master Classic being the most distinctive version.

• Hold & Spinner has an extra bonus round with a cash collect mechanic
• Floats My Boat has an extra multiplier feature in the bonus round
• Master Classic has a special mechanic for collecting fish values when 4 or more appear on the reels, plus the Remover symbol which removes the lowest value from possible fish values in the bonus round as well as awarding extra free spins
• It’s A Whopper has an extra symbol which can be collected on the side during the bonus round to award extra free spins
• Surf’s Up has a mystery symbol; all mystery symbols on screen transform into the same random paying symbol

Jackpots are awarded via a jackpot game that can be triggered by any spin in the base game (not during bonus rounds).  Match three symbols to win the corresponding jackpot.

At Flutter sites, all of these games have the same Return To Player – 92% not including the jackpot contribution and 93.02% including it.  For comparison, the non jackpot version of Big Bass Hold & Spinner at Paddy Power has considerably better RTP of 94.07%.  The RTP of the jackpot games could be higher or lower if the jackpot system is rolled out to other casinos, but you can expect it always to be lower than that of the non jackpot versions.  (If you’d like to know more about variable slot game RTP check out our Best Payout Casinos page).

Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza – The Jackpots

There are four jackpots in the Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza system – Minor, Major, Mega and Grand.  10% of the jackpot contribution goes towards seeding each of the next jackpots and the rest to the current jackpots.  It’s split as follows:

• 0.5% stake – Grand
• 0.05% stake – Mega
• 0.05% stake – Major
• 0.4% stake – Minor

This is an interesting split as it shows that the biggest and smallest jackpots are set to grow faster and drop more often than the middle two (you can actually see this when you play any of the games as Minor and Grand tick upwards much more quickly than the others).  And indeed, when I checked the day after the launch the Minor jackpot had been won 142 times with a highest value of £339.28, the Major jackpot had been won twice with a highest value of £1172.19, the Mega jackpot had been won once at £1133.86 and the Grand jackpot had been won 3 times with a highest value of £6092.20.

Jackpots can be won at any spin value but higher spin values have a higher chance of winning.

Big Bass Jackpot Bonanza – Where To Play