Fishin’ Pots of Gold

Fishin' Pots of Gold: Slot Overview

If you ever wanted evidence that we might be running out of new ideas on this planet, here comes Fishin' Pots of Gold by Microgaming partner Gameburger Studios. Weaving together elements of some of the most numerously unoriginal genres imaginable, Fishin' Pots of Gold revolves around a money symbol collection feature a la Fishin' Frenzy, but where the angler character has been replaced by a leprechaun called Lucky Lad Flynn. Hence, players get a stack of Irish platitudes to go with the fishing action. Perhaps for some, this will sound like a match made in heaven; for others, it probably won't make much sense whatsoever. Time to work out which side of the debate you are on.

To a sunlight pond in the cheerful Irish isles is where Fishin' Pots of Gold lays its scene. A transparent 5x3, 10-payline grid is used in the base game, growing in size when free spins are activated. The view is everything you'd think a big bass Irish bonanza would be. There's fish, rainbows, leprechauns, four-leaf clovers, jolly fiddle led tunes, and pots o' gold. The generic overload is bound to delight some players as much as it repels others.

Fishin' Pots of Gold is playable on any device, offering stakes of 10 p/c to $/€40 per spin. As is common now with Microgaming releases, RTP is variable, maxing out at 96.47%, while volatility remains medium no matter the version you fire up. Also worth noting is the hit rate which is relatively low at 19.15%, though the high symbol values sort of makes up for it. To sum it all up, the name of the game is collecting money symbols, including four jackpot tiles.

Ireland and fishing meet up on the paytable, which starts with Celtic-ish designed 10-A card ranks, all worth 10x the bet for five of a kind. Any combination of fish symbol is next, followed by floats, flies, Wellies, and tackle boxes where lines of five get you a payout of 20 to 200 times your stake. In all pay symbol cases, you'll need to land at least three of a kind, left to right, starting from the left side of the game panel.

Fishin' Pots of Gold: Slot Features

Collecting prize bearing fish symbols is one of the main goals of the game, along with jackpot symbols. Manage to trigger free spins where it is possible to build on the value of money symbols by chucking a multiplier into the mix.

Collect Symbol

Lucky Lad Flynn is used on the collect symbol, appearing on the rightmost reel in the base game, and all reels in free spins. The collect symbol is also wild, so it replaces all symbols except scatters or jackpot symbols. When a collect symbol lands at the same time as fish money symbols or jackpot symbols, the values are collected for the player. Jackpot symbols come in four types – Mini, Minor, Major, or Mega, worth 15x, 50x, 500x, or 5,000x the bet, respectively.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols triggers 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. While free spins are active, reels expand to 5 rows high, and 10 additional paylines are added. Also, the Big Bass Bonanza-style accumulation trail comes into force.

Now, whenever the collect symbol hits, it gets collected. For every 3 scatters collected, the cash symbol multiplier increases to x2, then x3, x5, and x10. Every 3 scatters collected also awards an extra 5 free spins. This is the only way to extend the bonus round as scatter symbols do not land during free spins.

Feature Buy

Fishin' Pots of Gold may come with a bonus buy option but it only becomes available after free spins have triggered organically at least once. Players can buy 10, 15 or 20 free spins for the cost of 50x, 100x, or 150x the bet.

Fishin' Pots of Gold: Slot Verdict

Pickles and peanut butter, banana and tomato sauce, peaches and blue cheese, if there are two seemingly unrelated foods out there, you can almost bet someone has combined them to varying degrees of success. So, it is with Fishin' Pots of Gold that either brings together a few favourite themes in one outrageously good medley of entertainment or leaves you clichéd out. It manages to not only copy Fishin' Frenzy, the godfather of symbol collect games, it also drags in Pragmatic Play/Reel Kingdom's hit Big Bass Bonanza at the same time. There is a good chance fans of the latter game will find entertainment value in Fishin' Pots of Gold, since both games do similar things, with an extra sweetener laid on in Fishin' Pots of Gold.

The extra sweetener is the expanded winning potential. Where BBB topped out at a so-so 2,100x, Fishin' Pots of Gold's four jackpot tiers help push that out to 5,000x. Relatively low potential didn't stop players lining up for a burn on Big Bass Bonanza, so is Fishin' Pots of Gold a shoe in to topple it off the fishing slot podium? Possibly, but the odd inclusion of all the Irish imagery might be a little too much.

Why Gameburger decided to hitch fish with leprechauns is anyone's guess, and one of two things may happen. Either it's a little too bizarre and flops around like a rainbow trout on the riverbank, or it proves to be a winning combo. Of course, there is also the middle ground where Fishin' Pots of Gold sort of does neither, of course. There are other touches here to tempt in Big Bass players, too. For one, reels and ways expand for the bonus game, and you can always buy free spins, too, provided you've triggered them naturally once already, an odd rule in itself.

Players into Irish and fishing themes should be overjoyed to see their two favourite genres collide on one massive leprechaun coloured angling fiesta. Others might not be so thrilled with the submarine sandwich of common slot ingredients.