Christmas Big Bass Bonanza Slot Review

Many of us remember when Pragmatic Play’s Big Bass Bonanza arrived on the market back in 2020. Since then, the game has gained so many fans that its creator has followed it up with several sequels, including Bigger Bass Bonanza, Big Bass Bonanza Megaways, and now Christmas Big Bass Bonanza.

Christmas Big Bass Bonanza is Pragmatic Play’s most festive game to date (with the exception of its Snowball Blast bingo game). In the main, it sticks to the game’s original format but this time, it’s late December under the ocean waves and the paytable symbols come with fun festive flourishes.

Whether you’ve played other titles in the series doesn’t matter as the rules and special features of Christmas Big Bass Bonanza are very simple to pick up. There’s a wild symbol that’s designed to help you catch more cash prizes, as well as a scatter symbol that can unlock the Free Spins Bonus.

The betting range is accommodating of all budgets, starting with a minimum bet of 10p and a maximum bet of £250. Plus, if you manage to find it at one of the online bingo or casino sites that offers its highest RTP of 96.71%, you’ll be even happier.

Join us as we take a look at Christmas Big Bass Bonanza in more detail.

How to play

Unlike some slots, Pragmatic Play’s Christmas Big Bass Bonanza lets you choose how many paylines you wish to enable. N.B., the minimum is 1 and the maximum is 10. This means that the minimum that you need to spend per spin is just 10p.

You can pick a coin value from the following options: £0.01, £0.03, £0.05, £0.10, £0.20 or £0.50. Alternatively, you can simply select one of the following total bet amounts: 10p, 20p, 30p, 40p, 50p, 60p, 70p, 80p, 90p, £1, £1.20, £1.50, £1.80, £2, £2.10, £2.40, £2.50, £2.70, £3, £3.50, £4, £4.50, £5, £6, £7, £8, £9, £10, £12, £14, £15, £16, £18, £20, £25, £30, £35, £40, £45 or £50.

The game uses 5 reels and 3 rows of symbols, and it lets you create winning combinations by landing 3 or more matching symbols from left to right on the same payline, starting with reel 1. The float symbol, however, pays for just 2 symbols.

On the bottom-left of the screen, there’s a menu button in which you can view your game history and tinker with the sound effects. Underneath it is the speaker icon which can be used to turn the music on or off. The “I” button brings up the paytable and the plus and minus buttons on the far right let you alter your stake and the number of paylines.

The symbols on the reels of this game are:

• Float
• Fishing Road
• Santa’s Sleigh
• Tackle Box
• Fish
• A
• K
• Q
• J
• 10
• Santa Claus
• Leaping Bass

Jackpot

While Pragmatic Play’s Christmas Big Bass Bonanza slot game does not have a fixed or progressive jackpot, it offers a tasty top win of 2,100 times your total bet.

Special features

Christmas Big Bass Bonanza boasts a ‘fishtastic’ feast of special features, and we’ll look at each of them in more detail below.

Money Symbols

Money Symbols play a big part in the gameplay. They’re represented by the four smaller fish, and on every spin, they’re assigned a random cash value. You can create standard winning combinations using the money symbols in the base game while in the Free Spins Bonus, you get the chance to reel them in for extra cash rewards.

Wild Symbol

The wild symbol in Christmas Big Bass Bonanza is Santa, and when the Free Spins Bonus is active, he can appear on all five reels. The wild symbol can replace all symbols except the scatter.

Free Spins Bonus

The only way to unlock the Free Spins Bonus is via the scatter symbol, which is represented by the leaping bass wearing a Christmas hat.

The number of free games that you’re awarded depends on the number of triggering scatter symbols as you can see in the list below:

• 3 scatters = 10 free spins
• 4 scatters = 15 free spins
• 5 scatters = 20 free spins

The Santa Claus wild symbol becomes hugely important in the Free Spins Bonus as it not only helps to improve your chances of creating winning combinations, but it also collects the values of any money symbols that appear on the reels on the same spin.

In addition, you can collect wild symbols in the bonus game and for every fourth one that you collect, you receive an extra 10 free games and a more generous multiplier for the money symbols. N.B. the multiplier increases to 2x for the first retrigger, 3x for the second retrigger and 10x for the third retrigger.

The bonus feature also uses a different set of reels that contain more fish (money) symbols and wilds than the base game reel set.

Graphics and Sounds

A jolly Christmas tune accompanies the playing experience while Pragmatic Play has also added little festive flourishes to the paytable symbols such as snow on the tops of the playing card symbols, new sleigh and Santa Claus symbols, and a Christmas hat for the Bass scatter symbol.

You can also see that the landscape just about the waterline has taken on a distinct wintry tone, and there are also snowflakes that float into the water before dissolving.

Conclusion

While Christmas Big Bass Bonanza doesn’t differ from the game’s original format except with its alternative graphics and soundtrack, it’s great to see one of our favourite games getting a makeover just in time for the countdown to Christmas. It also boasts an enhanced free spins round which can be retriggered up to three times and awards generous multipliers and the chance to hook some great wins.

Currently, you can play the Christmas Big Bass Bonanza slot exclusively at Entain brands including Gala Bingo, Gala Spins, Foxy Bingo and Foxy Games.