Pragmatic Play · 2024 · measured RTP 82.2% · tested 2026-11-05
Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake
At 82.2% RTP over 10,000 demo rounds, the pick-a-card screen before free spins always held two Golden Lake cards among its 12, yet the card picked showed Golden Lake in 8 of 141 bonuses.
In numbers: the lab's RTP test on the official demo server measured 82.2% against 96.07% declared over 10,000 logged rounds; 13.2% of rounds paid; a natural bonus landed once per 110 rounds (91 in total) and a bonus round paid a median 37.2x the stake, mean 58.4x, trigger spin included; 50 bonus buys at 100x returned 0.88x of their price on average, 76% of them below the price; the biggest round paid 551.0x; the longest dry run was 57 spins.
In the lab’s research: Best Big Bass slot, every edition measured · Slot volatility, measured · Declared vs measured RTP — this test is part of their data
Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake demo
United States·available at Cafe Casino
Same reels, real payouts
Cafe Casino runs the same Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake with the same math and adds a welcome bonus for players from the United States:
300% up to $2,000 + 150 FS 18+ · T&Cs apply · the demo stays free
Test card
10,000 spins · USD 2.00 bet · every request logged
| Spins | 10,000 |
| Bet | USD 2.00 |
| RTP declared | 96.07% |
| RTP measured | 82.15% (approximate 95% CI 64.8–99.5) |
| Hit frequency | 13% · every 7.56 |
| Dead streak max / avg | 57 / 7.56 |
| Median hit | 1.00x |
| Max win (no bonus round) | 81.0x · round 7069 |
| Free spins, natural | 91 · 9.1 bHz · every 109.9 spins · mean bonus round payout 58.4x stake |
| Balance start → end | 100,000 → 96,431 |
each run keeps its own spin log, CSV and raw server journal with checksums; the figures on this card combine all runs
Bonus buy lab
50 buys × 100x · USD 200 each
mean 0.88x · median 0.482× price (USD 96.40) · 38 of 50 below price · best 7.44x · worst 0.07x
| Spins per bonus (avg / min–max) | 16.5 / 10–45 |
| Extended | 42% |
| Money-symbol collects, avg win | 167.08 |
| Bonuses that paid nothing | 0% |
A fisherman lights one place on the bar above the reels, and every fourth one adds 10 spins and moves fish collection to the next rate, at most three times per bonus. Starts of 15 or 20 spins from four or five Scatters belong to the trigger and are left out; all natural bonuses began with 10, while 3 tickets opened with 15 and 1 with 20. Natural bonuses gained spins this way 30 times in 25 of 91, tickets 30 times in 21 of 50.
- Spent
- USD 10,00050 × USD 200
- Returned
- USD 8,80188.01% · approximate 95% CI 53–123%
- Net
- −USD 1,199−6.0 buys
- Break-even or better
- 12 / 5024%
- Paid 2× price or more
- 4 / 508%
- Price in base spins
- 100natural trigger every ~110 spins
One ticket equals 100 ordinary stakes. Natural bonuses occurred once per 110 ordinary rounds in this sample. Stakes multiplied by this interval measure gross wagering, not the net cost of obtaining a bonus. Purchase returns above include the complete purchased round and are divided by the ticket price.
Risk profile
how much bankroll this run needed
| 50 bets | bust at spin 99 |
| 100 bets | bust at spin 157 |
| 200 bets | bust at spin 286 |
One run, one bet size. A different session can bust earlier or never; treat this as a measured example, not a rule.
How it plays
8 rules screens from the game
Five fishing floats return USD 400 on the USD 2.00 test bet, the top line win, and a pair of them returns USD 1.00. Five dragonflies are worth USD 200, a rod or tackle box USD 100, the fish USD 40 and the cards from A down to 10 between USD 20 and USD 10. Each of the 10 lines runs across the 5x3 grid from its leftmost reel and carries a USD 0.20 coin at that bet.
Twelve cards are dealt face down before the first free spin, and the one turned over chooses the round, regular free spins for BONUS or the Golden Lake version for SECRETS OF THE GOLDEN LAKE. The deal follows three, four or five Scatters, worth 10, 15 or 20 spins. A spin that stops on two Scatters may get a second chance, either a respin of the reels that lack one while the Scatter reels slide down a row or a Scatter dropped straight in.
A cash label between 2x and 5,000x the stake sits on every fish and is paid out only when a fisherman collects it in free spins. In regular free spins the Fisherman Wild can land on all five reels, substitutes for everything except Scatters and fish, and takes the value of every fish in view. Golden Lake free spins start at 10, clear the normal symbols away and leave reels of fish, fishermen and blanks only, where any combination with fish pays as well. When a screen is one step short, a random extra may drop fish beside lone fishermen, hook a reel of fishermen up under stranded fish, or pull a curtain that changes all symbols other than the fishermen.
In both versions every fourth fisherman adds 10 spins and lifts the collect rate a step, to 2x, 3x and finally 10x, and after that last step no further spins are added. A free spins round that reaches 5,000x the bet closes at once, and its remaining spins are forfeited.
All modes are rated at 96.07% RTP with high volatility. The smallest stake is USD 0.10 and the largest USD 250, or USD 375 with Ante, which turns the 10-coin bet into 15 coins, USD 3.00 at the test bet, makes Scatters more frequent and cannot be combined with a purchase. The 100x ticket, USD 200 at that bet, still goes through the cards, whereas the 270x option opens Golden Lake directly.
Free spins
Scatter symbol
Wild symbol
Multiplier
Respin
Bonus buy
Extra bet
Bet range USD 0.10 – 250 per spin · payouts read from the game's paytable at bet USD 2.00
Gallery
10 frames from the demo session
Verdict
Two gold cards, rarely the pick
Each of the 141 bonuses, 91 natural and 50 bought, began with PICK A CARD, and the first card was always the one taken. Once the deck turned face up it held exactly two Golden Lake cards and ten BONUS cards every time, but the card taken showed Golden Lake on just 5.7% of the picks, where two cards in twelve make 16.7%. At that share the flipped decks would have predicted about 23.5 Golden Lake rounds against the 8 found; whether another position would change the outcome was not tested.
Four natural bonuses went to Golden Lake, among them round 6313, which ran 30 spins and paid 551x the stake to top the series, and round 8755, third with 206x in 20 spins. The four together brought USD 1,744, 16.4% of the money from all 91 natural bonus rounds. Without round 6313 the other 9,999 rounds returned 76.65% of their stake.
The best two of the 50 USD 200 purchases, tickets 9 and 25, were regular rounds that gathered 12 fishermen each and collected at 10x, coming back at 7.441x and 5.022x the price. Golden Lake turned up on 4 tickets, and those averaged 0.870x their price, against 0.881x for the 46 regular ones.
- Natural Golden Lake bonuses had a 140.5x median, against 34.6x for the 87 regular ones
- Six collects at the 10x rate brought USD 1,660, 19.9% of the fisherman money in 50 purchases
- Exactly 20 spins were played in 20 natural bonuses, which averaged 101.52x the stake
- With a single fisherman, eight natural bonuses averaged 19.35x the stake
- Number 22, a Golden Lake ticket, came back with USD 40 for its USD 200
- Only five natural bonuses of 91 got to the 3x collect rate, and none to 10x
Test record
10,000 rounds · 50 buys · open data · closed rig
One test run so far: a single session of the base game plus a separate series of bonus purchases on the official demo server, every request and response logged. When the game is tested again, the new run is added here and the figures on this page combine all runs into one sample.
- 10,000rounds logged
- 13%rounds that paid
- 551xbiggest round
- 1 / 110natural bonus rate
- 0.88xmean of 50 buys
- 57longest dry streak
01run Run 012026-11-05 measured return82.15%-13.9 pts vs declared
- 95% band
- 64.8–99.5%
- rounds that paid
- 13%
- biggest round
- 551x · round 6,313
- longest dry streak
- 57
- natural bonuses
- 91 · one per 110 rounds
- bonus buys
- mean 0.88x · median 0.482x · 76% below price
- balance start → end
- 100,000 → 96,431
- deepest drawdown
- 1,924x
10,000 ordinary rounds, including naturally triggered features, at a fixed USD 2 bet; 50 bonus buys at USD 200 each (100x); recorded on the official Pragmatic Play demo server (jurisdiction 99, RTP profile 96.07%); every request and response logged; test run 2026-11-05.
The test rig plays the official demo build over the network and records every server round: bet, win, intermediate steps (cascades, respins), free spins, collect. Screenshots and video were captured in a separate browser session and are not part of the statistical samples. The text was read against the log by an editor before publication. How we test → One test, step by step →
FAQ
8 questions · answered from the log
What decides whether a Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake bonus becomes Golden Lake free spins?
The card turned on the PICK A CARD screen, which follows every natural trigger and every 100x purchase. Twelve cards lie face down, BONUS leads to regular free spins and SECRETS OF THE GOLDEN LAKE to the Golden Lake round, and the game server returns the type of round together with the pick. In the test, 87 natural and 46 bought picks came up BONUS.
With two gold cards out of twelve, should Golden Lake come about once in six bonuses?
No. The first card, the only position used in the test, showed Golden Lake in 8 of 141 bonuses, 4 of 91 natural and 4 of 50 bought. Every deck, once flipped, still held two of them.
What is different about Golden Lake free spins compared with the regular ones?
Normal symbols leave the grid, and the reels carry only fish, fishermen and blanks. The biggest fish value on a natural Golden Lake screen was 200x the bet, in round 8755, and 500x on two bought ones, tickets 22 and 50. Spins still start at 10 and grow by 10 with every fourth fisherman.
Does 82.15% over 10,000 spins mean Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake pays less than 96.07%?
No. A game this volatile gives its 10,000-round mean a wide approximate 95% CI, 64.78% to 99.52%, and 96.07% sits inside it. Natural bonus rounds made up 64.70% of all payouts, and one more 551x round like 6313 would have added more than 5 points to the total.
I have spun 500 times without free spins. Is that unusual?
Rare, but the test had one. A natural bonus arrived once per 109.89 rounds on average, and of the gaps inside a test lane only one went past 500: 715 rounds without a trigger from round 2504 to round 3220. The next longest were 499 and 425.
Is buying Big Bass Secrets of the Golden Lake free spins for USD 200 a good deal?
No. The 50 tickets returned 88.01% of the USD 10,000 they cost, the median one USD 96.40, 0.482x, and 12 of them covered the price. Tickets 9 and 25, the only two to reach the 10x collect stage, paid USD 1,488.20 and USD 1,004.40.
Can a single fish really be worth 5,000x, the whole max win?
Yes. No fish label is higher than 5,000x, which is also the point where a round stops. One natural free spin in round 14 showed a 5,000x fish and one in round 9175 a 2,500x fish, but no fisherman took either; the biggest fish ever collected, in natural or bought free spins, was worth 50x.
Does the USD 540 Golden Lake purchase skip the card pick?
Yes. Golden Lake free spins start directly from the 270x purchase, USD 540 at a USD 2.00 bet, with no card to choose, as the rules describe it. It was not bought in this test, and neither was Ante, which raises the bet to 15 coins, USD 3.00.
Comments and reviews
Leave a comment or your own test of this slot
- spins10,000
- bet2.00
- result-1,785x
- RTP measured82.2%
- bonuses91
- max win, no bonus81.0x
Also tested
4 more slots on the same rig-
Bonanza Billion
BGaming · 10,000 spins
2026-11-05
RTP
88.4% 98.2%
hit38%
max30x
buy1.48x
-
Chaos Crew
Hacksaw Gaming · 10,000 spins
2026-10-13
RTP
87.0% 96.3%
hit24%
max126x
buy0.97x
-
Book of 99
Relax Gaming · 30,000 spins
2026-09-19
RTP
107.3% 99.0%
hit30%
max102x
buy—
-
Gates of Olympus
Pragmatic Play · 60,000 spins
2026-09-03
RTP
96.6% 96.5%
hit29%
max2,218x
buy0.97x