Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 (Pragmatic Play) Review & Demo

🗝️ Key Takeaways

• Spin 10 fixed lines on a 5x3 grid, where Santa the Fisherman lands on reels one and five and collects every money fish in view.
• Catch base-game Fishermen carrying 2x, 3x or 10x, a boost applied to the fish they reel in.
• Trigger 10, 15 or 20 free spins with three, four or five Scatters, while a hook and three gift boxes can rescue a spin that shows only two.
• Gather every fourth Fisherman in the bonus for 10 more spins and a collection multiplier that rises to 2x, then 3x, then 10x.
• Switch on the 1.5x bet for more Scatters on the reels, or buy straight in for 100x or 410x.
• Plan for a return of up to 96.50%, Medium volatility and wins capped at 20,000x.

It is a clear winter night in the mountains, and the sky above the frozen lake shimmers with ribbons of green and violet light. Snow weighs down the pines, red log cabins glow warmly from their windows along both shores, and stars fill every gap between the peaks.

Out on the ice stands Santa, though not quite the one from the storybooks. He wears aviator sunglasses, a fur-trimmed red fishing vest and a green T-shirt with a fish on the front, and he grins as he holds up a scaly green catch almost as long as his arm.

In his other hand is a candy-cane rod crackling with electricity, its line whipping around him in bolts of blue light, while a giant battery at the edge of the scene spits sparks and the ice sprays up beneath his boots. This is how Santa fishes now.

He has wired his gear to a power supply, and every fish he hauls up through the ice comes with a price on it. The soundtrack is all Christmas, upbeat and quick, with bells chiming here and there to keep the festive mood rolling.

This is Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 from Pragmatic Play, made with Reel Kingdom, the team behind the series. Money fish only pay out when a Fisherman is there to reel them in, and the free spins add retriggers, a climbing multiplier and random extras that can rescue an empty spin.

🎅 Santa's Sleigh on the Ice

The reels are built into a wooden frame that rests on the back of a red sleigh, with candy-cane posts on either side wrapped in strings of coloured fairy lights. Snow is piled along the top beam, decorated with pine branches, wrapped presents and a Christmas pudding, and thin streaks of blue lightning run down the gaps between the reels.

The logo hangs over the middle in front of a glowing snow globe, with Big Bass in orange and yellow, Christmas in red script and Blast 1000 in gold. On the left, a purple Buy Free Spins sign offers two options, and three gift boxes stack beneath it, red for 20 free spins, purple for 15 and green for 10.

On the right, a wooden sign shows the price of the extra-chance bet above an on/off switch. Fishing kit with a festive twist fills the premium ranks.

A red and green float shaped like a Christmas bauble pays best, ahead of a sleigh painted with an anchor on its side, a rod with a candy-striped reel and an open tackle box overflowing with baubles. The royals look as if they were made of coloured ice and sugar, a purple A, a blue K, a pink Q, a green J and a yellow 10, each capped with snow and a sprig of holly.

The money fish sit inside green bubbles framed by a candy-cane ring and a red bow, from a brown fish wearing a Christmas pudding to a white snowman fish with a carrot nose and a top hat. The Scatter is a bass in a Santa hat and a red Christmas jumper, perched on a pile of presents, and the Wild is Santa himself, framed in candy cane with a snowy cabin behind him.

🎣 Ten Lines and the Fisherman's Catch

The 5x3 grid uses 10 fixed lines. Payouts begin with reel one and carry across neighbouring reels, only the top win on each line counts, and all of the line wins are combined.

Outside the bonus, the Fisherman Wild appears only on the two outer reels. He can replace every symbol on the reels except the bass Scatter, and when he arrives alongside money fish, he collects the value of every one on the screen.

Those values range from 0.5x to 1,000x the bet. He can also arrive wearing a random 2x, 3x or 10x badge, which boosts what he collects.

Our first win had two Fishermen at work. One landed on each end reel next to money fish worth 2.00 and 1.50, so each of them collected 3.50, and with the Wild on reel one also completing three sleighs on line 9 for 3.00, the spin paid 10.00.

📊 RTP and Volatility

Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 returns 96.50% in its top version, and the figure holds whichever way you play, with the 1.5x bet, the 100x buy and the 410x buy all matching it. Casinos can also pick editions at 95.50% and 94.50%, so why return to player matters deserves a read before choosing where to spin.

Medium volatility is the official rating here, and the spread of results fits it. In the base game a win lands roughly once every 7.91 spins, and free spins arrive about every 112, a fair rate for a bonus that carries most of the value.

The big numbers take far longer. Wins bigger than 1,000x come around once in 100,601 spins, above 5,000x about once in 2,965,313, above 10,000x once in 3,498,426, and the full 20,000x roughly once in 3,820,474.

How hit rates shape a session puts those odds into context, and how mid-range volatility plays out covers the balance between steady small wins and rare large ones.

💰 Symbols and Payouts

Prices here are for a 1.00 stake, with five of a kind shown first.

High Paying:

• Float: 200.00 / 20.00 / 5.00, plus 0.50 for two.
• Sleigh: 100.00 / 15.00 / 3.00.
• Fishing Rod: 50.00 / 10.00 / 2.00.
• Tackle Box: 50.00 / 10.00 / 2.00.

Low Paying:

• A and K: 10.00 / 2.50 / 0.20.
• Q, J and 10: 5.00 / 1.00 / 0.20.

Special Symbols:

• Fisherman Wild (Santa): Takes the place of every icon except the Scatter, lands on the outer reels in the base game and anywhere in the free spins, and gathers every fish value on screen.
• Money (Fish): Carries 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x or 1,000x the bet, and also pays 20.00 / 5.00 / 1.00 as a line symbol during the free spins.
• Scatter (Bass in a Santa Hat): Lands on any reel, and three or more start the free spins.

The float is the only symbol that pays for two in a row, and its 200.00 for five is double the sleigh below it. The money fish matter more than any of them, though, since a single 1,000x catch is worth five lines of floats.

🎄 Free Spins

The bonus opens with 10 free spins for three Scatters, 15 for four and 20 for five. Even two can get you there.

Whenever a pair lands in the base game without a third, a hook can drag one more onto the reels after the spin. The pair is also tucked into one of the three gift boxes on the left, and at random that box can open the bonus with whichever count is printed on it.

Three Scatter bass landing together, spread across the first, second and fourth reels, are enough for a 10-spin start. Our own round opened with 15.

The scene shifts to night, matching the opening artwork, with the northern lights swirling over the mountains and snow drifting past the lit cabins. A tracker runs along the top of the grid, with Santa portraits in groups of three and a +10 Free Spins panel after each group, lit by every fourth Fisherman.

During the round, the Fisherman can land on any reel, and each one collects all the money fish on screen. Every Fisherman is also counted on the tracker until the round ends.

Our first catch came with nine spins left. Santa landed on reel four, a bolt of lightning connected him to two snowman fish worth 5.00 each, and he reeled in 10.00.

⚡ Retriggers and the Rising Multiplier

Every fourth Fisherman retriggers the round, adding 10 free spins and raising the multiplier on money collections to 2x, then 3x for the second retrigger and 10x for the third. The extra spins are played after the batch in progress ends, and after the third retrigger, no more can be won.

Our fourth Fisherman arrived before the opening 15 spins were over. With the round on 87.40, a sign announced 10 extra free spins, with every catch now worth double.

The x2 batch soon produced the eighth Fisherman. Santa landed on reel five with a 2x badge, turned a 5.00 snowman fish into 10.00 and lit the second +10 panel, with the total running past 106.

That meant 10 more spins at 3x. The best catch came on the very last of them, with a Fisherman on the middle reel gathering a 10.00 fish and two 5.00 fish, and the 3x turned their 20.00 into 60.00.

The final count was 220.60 from 35 free spins.

💥 Bazooka, Hook and Surprise Fish

Three random extras can step in once a free spin has stopped:

• When Fishermen are on the reels with no money fish, money fish can appear in random positions.
• The hook can pull extra Fishermen and money fish onto the grid after the spin.
• When Fishermen land without money fish, a Bazooka can blast every symbol except the Fishermen and change them into something else.
• All three can also turn up at random during base game spins.

🎁 The Extra-Chance Bet and the Buys

The sign on the right switches the bet multiplier from 10x to 15x, so a 1.00 bet becomes 1.50. In return, more Scatters sit on the reels and the bonus lands naturally more often, but the buy option cannot be used while it is on.

Ordinary spins run from 0.10 to 250, and the extra-chance bet lifts the top stake to 375. Buy Free Spins comes in two forms.

The standard bonus is priced at 100x the bet and guarantees 3, 4 or 5 Scatters on the triggering spin. Super Free Spins costs 410x, lands the same Scatters and gives the money fish a higher chance of carrying the 1,000x value.

Wins are capped at 20,000x the bet, worth $5,000,000 on a 250 spin. Should a bonus hit that figure, it ends there and then, paying the capped amount and dropping any spins still to come.

🤔 Is This Slot For You?

Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 suits anyone who already enjoys the Fisherman formula and wants it with more going on. Base-game multipliers, two ways to rescue a two-Scatter spin and three random extras give it plenty of variety.

The free spins are where the game builds. Each Fisherman pushes the tracker forward, and reaching 10x on the final batch is when a big fish can turn into a huge payout.

Medium volatility keeps the pace comfortable, though anyone hoping for wins on most spins should know that the base game pays roughly once in eight. We have covered two close relatives of this game in depth.

Our Big Bass Blast review covers the electrified lakeside original, where every seventh Fisherman collected adds five free spins. In our Big Bass Xmas Extreme review, the fisherman swaps the frozen lake for an icy Antarctic wilderness full of penguins, with gifts to unwrap before the bonus and up to eight levels of multipliers.

🌟 VistaGamble's Honest Assessment

Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 dresses a proven formula for the holidays and adds enough extras to give it a character of its own.

➕ The Positives

• A Fisherman who works in the base game: two reels can deliver collections, and a random multiplier can lift the catch up to tenfold.
• Rescues for near misses: the hook and the gift boxes can both turn two Scatters into a bonus.
• A multiplier worth chasing: the third retrigger lifts every collection to 10x for the final batch.
• One return everywhere: the 1.5x bet and both buys keep the full 96.50%.
• A big ceiling: the top prize reaches 20,000x the bet.

➖ The Negatives

• Fish that wait for a Fisherman: in the base game, money values on screen pay nothing unless he lands to collect them.
• Thin royal pays: three of a kind return just 0.20 on a 1.00 bet.
• A long road to 10x: the top multiplier takes twelve Fishermen in one round.
• No buying with the extra-chance bet: switching to 1.5x removes both purchase options.
• A pricey premium buy: Super Free Spins costs more than four times the standard bonus.

🔒 Conclusion

Big Bass Christmas Blast 1000 takes Santa ice fishing and gives the familiar collect-and-retrigger bonus a festive, electric makeover. The extras come round regularly, which keeps every session busy, and the 10x final batch gives the round a real goal.

Our 35 free spins showed the climb in action, from a 10.00 first catch to a 3x haul of 60.00 on the very last spin for a 220.60 total. Fancy another cast?

Our Pragmatic Play lobby is packed with the rest of the studio's games, every one of them free to play!

Frequently Asked Questions❓

Money fish but no Fisherman: does anything pay?

Not in the base game, where the fish only show their values until a Fisherman collects them. In the free spins, they also pay as line symbols, worth 1.00 to 20.00 at a 1.00 bet.

Two Scatters and no bonus: is the spin wasted?

Not always. A hook can drop a third Scatter after the spin, and the pair also goes into one of the gift boxes, which can open a full bonus at random.

Which Fisherman unlocks the 10x batch?

The twelfth in a single round. The fourth brings 2x, the eighth 3x and the twelfth 10x, each with 10 extra spins.

Is the 1.5x bet worth switching on?

It depends on how you like to play. It adds Scatters to the reel strips for a better natural trigger rate and keeps the 96.50% return, but both buy options are locked while it is on.

What separates the 410x buy from the 100x one?

The money fish. Both guarantee 3 to 5 Scatters, but Super Free Spins gives the fish a better chance of landing with the 1,000x value.

Does the base-game Fisherman ever multiply his catch?

Yes. He can land with 2x, 3x or 10x, and that figure multiplies the money fish he collects.