Over the past year and a half, fishing-themed slots have become a hot trend among online casino players in the UK. Blueprint Gaming and Pragmatic Play have both launched a large number of fishing slot games, and other game studios have also started adding their own creations. Casino slot guide Fishing Slots believes the reason for this is that “whether as a hobby, for work, or for sport, the fishing industry is a multi-billion-dollar industry.”
“From a young age, toddlers are introduced to fishing games. These games are perfect for developing motor skills and hand-eye coordination among children. And it’s these same game features that casino software studios are implementing in their slot machines. So, traits embedded in us from a young age are being targeted in casino game features,” the company noted.
Fishinglsots.co.uk conducted observations from the beginning of 2022 to mid-August 2023. In their observations, they visited 5 different UK-licensed casinos on a weekly basis, including Yeti Casino, No Bonus Casino, All British Casino, Fun Casino, and Pub Casino.
During each observation, they took note of the following details:
- How many fishing slots were listed in the most popular games section?
- Which specific fishing-themed slot games were present?
- How many times did a specific slot appear in the popular games section?
- What positions were they listed in, in the online casino lobbies?
It should be noted that all Popular Game sections on each casino site are updated once a week automatically. Popularity is based on a combination of total betting turnover per game as well as a unique number of active bettors per game. Therefore, the most popular games will have the highest betting turnover and a high number of unique active betting players, playing them on a weekly basis.
Fishingslots.co.uk observed that at least one fishing slot featured in the top 5 popular games, each week. Moreover, Fishin’ Frenzy and Big Bass Bonanza slots had the most appearances. Additionally, fishing slots were also often included in participating slots tournament games, thus creating competition among rival players for top spots on tournament leaderboards, and in turn, creating more revenue for casino operators.
A Fishing Slots correspondent said: “One key observation we noticed, is that out of 1,000’s slots games on offer at each casino site, players appear to be consistently drawn to Blueprint Gaming’s and Pragmatic Play’s fishing slot games.”
Back in 2014, Reel Time Gaming released their online version of Fishin’ Frenzy. This game became so popular that Blueprint Technologies, the company behind casino games provider Blueprint Gaming, acquired the rights to the trademark. This in turn started the creation of the Fishin’ Frenzy slots series, which now includes over 12 different slot games.
At the end of 2020, Pragmatic Play launched the Big Bass Bonanza slot game. What started out as a mimic of Fishin’ Frenzy, quickly proved to garner a lot of appreciation from casino players. Over the past few years, Pragmatic has released numerous game titles in the Big Bass Bonanza series. Furthermore, they have helped propel growth in revenues for Pragmatic Play, year after year.
The uptrend in fishing slot popularity has also caught the attention of other casino game studios such as Inspired Entertainment, Stakelogic, Relax Gaming, and Gameburger Studios. On average 1-2 new fishing slots are being released each month, and their popularity among casino players is sure to be driving revenue for all game studios.