Big Bass Day At The Races

Big Bass Day At The Races Slot Review

Slot Provider: Pragmatic Play

RTP: 96.07% | Variance: High | Maximum Win: 10,000x

Our Score: 7.8

Play at Grand Ivy Casino
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About Big Bass Day At The Races

Reviewed by:

Published Date: 8th February 2024

How We Review Slot Games

We test and rate all slot games across 5 criteria, assigning a score out of 10 for each and an overall score that is an average of the 5. To build an accurate assessment of each game we gather information from the supplier and play in real play or demo mode. Find out more.

Big Bass Day At The Races is the latest (13th) game in this popular fishing slot series from Pragmatic Play. The action moves to the racetrack, but the gameplay has not changed much. Horses replace fish to represent money symbols worth up to 1,000x, collected at random on each spin in the base game. Meanwhile, the free spins round includes a pick me game to unlock features like extra wilds, extra spins and guaranteed money symbols.

The maximum win is 10,000x and spins start at just 10p. Day at the Races is available at slot sites from 7th March 2024.

Big Bass Day At The Races Game Information

  • RTP: 96.07% | 96.08% | 94.05%
  • Variance: High
  • Maximum Win: 10,000x
  • Progressive Jackpot: No
  • Reels: 5
  • Rows: 3
  • Paylines: 10
  • Minimum Stake: £0.10
  • Theme: Sport
  • Features: Wilds, Money Symbols, Multipliers, Free Spins

Testing Notes: Here’s What Happened When We Played Big Bass Day At The Races

IMPORTANT: To give you an accurate assessment of the games we review our writers play 200 spins. Whilst this is a useful tool to help us review games and to give an example of what might happen when you play, keep in mind that 200 spins is only a very small sample and cannot be used to accurately predict what might happen over another 200 spins. The outcome of all slots play is always random.

Boom Or Bust? Our Session By The Numbers

I played 500 spins on Big Bass Day At The Races on Pragmatic Play’s test server prior to release to test the game. This is what happened.

  • Stake Size: $1
  • Start balance: $100,000
  • End balance: $99,685.20
  • Hit Rate: 11.4% (57 winning spins in 500)
  • Biggest Win: 15x
  • Free Spins Round: 2

It really feels like Pragmatic Play are cranking up the volatility lately in these Big Bass games. Recently in testing, Floats My Boat came in with a 10% hit rate. In this test over 500 spins Day At The Races was almost as tight at 11.4%. That is almost bang on the advertised hit rate of 1 in 8.5 spins, so it was performing as expected. There were no big wins. The best was a 13.6x recorded in the base game when money symbols were randomly collected and a 4x multiplier applied to the total seen here:

A Base Game Win in Day At The Races
A 13.6x base game win in Day At The Races from money symbols and 4x multiplier

The free spins round triggered just twice. Weirdly, on two consecutive spins – 149 and 150 in fact. This round is a lot of fun to be fair. You pick your modifiers from a list of runners and riders which is quite cool, and keep picking until it says, ‘And They’re Off’. Your modifiers are displayed above the reels for the round so you can see what to expect on each spin. It also tracks how many Wild symbols have landed. Once you have 4, then 10 more spins are added. Unfortunately I never got passed 3.

A Day At The Races Modifiers
Pick Me Game like a runners and riders list

In the first round I picked 2 extra free spins and won 15x. The second free spins round I picked a modifier that guaranteed 2 money symbols on each spin. That is a great starting point, but as with other Big Bass games, it’s useless unless you get the wild to collect them, which rarely happened for me.

A 15x win from free spins in Day At The Races
A 15x win from the first of two free spins rounds

500 spins is enough to get a good feel for a slot and I can say that Big Bass is just as volatile as others in the series, if not more so. It was unforgiving, but I liked the configuration of the free spins round and its easy to see how you could land some massive payouts if you can keep re-triggering and getting lucky with the wilds.

What We Liked

  • Familiar gameplay for fans of the Big Bass series
  • Random extra money symbols and wilds in the free spins round
  • Up to EIGHT sets of 10 free spins
  • Big 10,000x max win potential
  • Pick me bonus to choose your modifiers adds excitement to the game

What We Didn't like

  • A strange addition to a series about fishing!
  • Very volatile so unpredictable and may be a grind at times

Big Bass Day At The Races Review Scores

  • Theme and Design 7
  • RTP and Variance 8
  • Maximum Win 8
  • Symbols and Paytable 8
  • Features and Gameplay 8

What Our Reviewer Says ...

"With high volatility its like backing an outsider, but this game is still great fun, with all the best bits of Big Bass in a cool new setting!"

Overall Score: 7.8

Theme & Design

Our Score 7

Big Bass Man Hits The Racetrack For a Big Day Out!

Your favourite fisherman has ditched his waders and put on his best tweeds to hit the racecourse, full beard all present and correct of course. Maybe there just aren’t any good bass-fishing locations left to mine, or maybe its off-season. But whatever, this is a slightly odd detour for Pragmatic Play. Design is rather simplistic with its broad green track area in the background under blue skies, all viewed from the main stand, with the reel set taking centre stage.  It’s far from the exotic sites of Amazon Xtreme on which the gameplay is based, but it serves the purpose. For continuity, a variation on the twangy banjo soundtrack accompanies your spins, interspersed with brief sounds of whinnying horses.

Big Bass Day At The Races by Pragmatic Play
Big Bass Day At The Races – a simple design

RTP and Variance

Our Score 8

What is RTP?

RTP (Return to Player) refers to the amount a game will pay out in cash prizes expressed as a percentage of all the money wagered on that game. For example, a 96% RTP means a game will pay out £96 for every £100 wagered. This is an average number and will vary from one session to the next.  Read more here.

What is Variance?

Variance refers to how far a game will deviate from its RTP over time. High variance games deviate a lot and produce uneven win distributions and unexpected windfalls. Low variance games provide a more stable and even distribution of wins. Read more here.

Like most Pragmatic Play slots we see nowadays, Big Bass Day At The Races comes with three possible RTP settings – 96.07%, 96.08% or 94.05%. It will be at the casino operator’s discretion which rate to set the game to. There isn’t much between 94.05% and 96.07% and you wouldn’t notice the difference, but every little helps, so try to play at the optimum rate if you can. You can check the rate on the game info screen once you’ve loaded up the slot.

In my experience, MrQ from Lindar Media consistently runs games at maximum RTP.

Like all the other Big Bass slots, Day at the Races is a high volatility one, so keep that in mind when choosing your stake. It can go pop at any time but it can also grind your balance down pretty fast.

Maximum Win

Our Score 8

What Is Maximum Win?

Maximum win refers to the maximum amount a player can win from one spin. It is expressed as a multiple of the stake. For example, where the maximum win is 100,000x, from a £1 stake, the maximum win would be £100,000.  

The max win in Day at the Races has been set to 10,000x. That is higher than most of the other Big Bass games including the original Big Bass Bonanza game which came in at 2,100x, and the recent Floats My Boat which maxed out at 5,000x. If you like high max win slot then I also recommend you read our article on Pragmatic Play’s highest payout games.

Symbols and Paytable

Our Score 8

The simple Big Bass format is retained with 5 reels, 3 rows and just 10 paylines.  The objective is to land 3 or more identical symbols across a line from left to right, starting at the left most reel, to score a win.

Big Bass Day At The Races Paytable
Paytable with 200x for 5 of the highest value premiums

There are 5 low value symbols and 4 premiums in the table. Low value ones are the cards, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. These are valued at from 0.2x for 3 10s up to 10x for 5 Aces. Premiums are the binoculars, pint glass, picnic basket and champagne. These are valued at from 2x for 3 binoculars up to 200x for 5 champagnes.

There is a Wild, represented by the bearded man with his race cards. He only appears in the free spins feature where he can substitute for any pay symbol to complete a payline. He has no value on his own.

Features and Gameplay

Our Score 8

The setting might have changed, but the features have a familiar ring, albeit without a fish in sight! 

Money Symbols and Multipliers

Rather than bass, horses now represent the money symbols. They drop on any spin, taking on a random value when they do: 0.2x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 200x, 250x, 333x, 500x or 1,000x.

A money symbol won’t pay out every time it lands. Instead, the value of money symbols is randomly collected on some spins. When that happens, a random multiplier also comes into play: 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 10x, 30x, 40x or 50x.  This multiplier is applied to the total of all the collected coins before the win is paid out.

Money Collects in Day At The Races
Money collect – the finishing post moves across the reels

Free Spins With Pick Me Round, Wilds and Multipliers

Things get considerably more interesting in the free spins round.

First of all, you need 3 or more scatters to land in the base game to trigger this feature. This can happen in one of two ways. You may just land 3 scatters on a lucky spin OR you may land two and a third may be introduced like this:

  • If the two scatters can drop a row each without leaving the reels then they do so then lock in place whilst the others re-spin to see if a third comes up.
  • A lasso appears in an overlay on top of the reels before randomly adding a third scatter.

Before the round starts you get a pick me game where each pick will reveal a modifier to be used in the free spins feature. The picks continue until no modifier is picked. These are the possible modifiers:

  • Up to SIX extra free spins
  • Up to THREE + 1 Fixed Horse symbols. Each one gives you one GUARANTEED money symbol per free spin
  • Up to THREE Wilds in the collection before the round starts. This is important because collecting wilds during the round unlocks more features
  • Up to TWO removals of the lowest value money symbols (2x then 5x) from the table so that higher value ones land in the round

Once you’ve made your picks, then the round starts.

During free spins, when a Wild lands, it collects up the value of all money symbols on the reels. And all Wilds are then collected too.

This is the basis for the game, but it gets better as you collect more wilds. Every 4th Wild you collect gets you 10 more spins and increased the multiplier applied to money symbol collections to 2x, then 3x, then 10x, then 20x, then 30x, then 40x, then 50x.

At 50x, there are no more extra spins and the game ends when your spins are all gone.

And finally, Pragmatic Play have added some more random events to the free spins round.

  • If there are Wilds but no Money symbols after a spin, money symbols may be added to the reels at random. OR a stampede occurs in which horses race across the screen and all symbols are changed EXCEPT For the Wilds.
  • If there are Money Symbols but no Wild symbols after a spin, the lasso may appear to randomly add Wilds.
  • At the end of any spin the lasso can appear and pull Wilds and Money Symbols onto the reels from the bottom of the screen.

The Final Verdict

I had misgivings about Day at the Races when I first loaded it up. It comes hot on the heels of another Big Bass game, and two in two months feels like overkill. But in fact, it was a pleasant surprise. The simple design is in keeping with the Big Bass brand, and the best parts of previous games have been applied to the racing track really well. I particularly liked the pick me game with modifiers hiding behind listings of horses in the race. The volatility is something to be wary of, as testing showed. But otherwise, this is another superb addition to a very popular slot series.

Useful Tips When Playing Big Bass Day At The Races

Remember, online slots are games of chance, there is NO strategy that can improve your odds of winning. However, reading our review and following these tips will help you get the most out of your time playing this slot game.

1. Look For The Wild Man During Free Spins

It’s all about landing the Wild Man – him with the beard! – during free spins. He will collect up all your money symbols so keep your eye out for him if you make it that far!

2. Play At A High RTP

With three possible RTP settings it makes sense to do your research and find a site which offers Day At The Races at its optimum rate. Every little helps, even an extra 1% or 2% in the RTP!

3. Play At A Low Stake Value

With highly volatile slots like this one it makes sense to start with a low stake value. The minimum is 10p. That means you can stretch your balance further through the tough times whilst waiting for that big win to come around.

 

4. Play At Our Recommended UK Slot Sites

We have chosen the sites on this page because they all offer Pragmatic Play slots, have a great sign up deal, and operate under license from the UK Gambling Commission. That makes them safe to play at.

Who Made Big Bass Day At The Races?

  • Name: Pragmatic Play
  • Established: 2015
  • UK License: Remote 046683-R-325951-014
  • Total Games: 500 +
  • Known For: Wide range of themes and styles, live casino including gameshow formats, and bingo
  • Popular Slots: Fruit Party, Dog House Megaways, Big Bass Bonanza, Release the Kraken
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