Arctic Fish and Cash

Arctic Fish and Cash Slot Review

A cartoon fisherman in a fur-lined parka sits on his ice floe with the rod bent double over the water, a red-and-white bobber dangling into a sea that’s half grey sky above and half gloomy blue depth below. Coral branches and drifting bubbles fill out the underwater half, and a green fish trap leans against the left edge of the frame. It’s a cheerful, glossy sort of cold.

Popiplay haven’t given this frozen pond a single idea you haven’t seen before, but they’ve tuned the one that matters: multipliers that sit through an entire refill sequence and stack. It runs at 96.11% RTP on a 5×5 grid with high volatility, in the same waters as Wild Wild Duck and Taco Hell. Whether the multiplier round justifies another run through a borrowed formula is the honest question, and the answer depends entirely on how much you enjoy waiting on ice.

How the Base Game Pays

Wins on the 5×5 grid are formed by symbol count rather than fixed lines. Land enough of the same symbol anywhere on screen and it pays, with the amount set by the paytable. A few things are worth spelling out about how wins settle:

• Multiple winning combinations in one spin have their win amounts added together
• Scatter pays are calculated separately from combination wins
• If a paying number of Scatters and winning combinations drop in the same spin, you receive both
• The total win for a spin is displayed in the Total Win field

The Refill

Every winning spin then triggers the Refill. All winning symbols disappear, everything left falls to the bottom of the screen, and new symbols drop in from above. That keeps going for as long as new wins keep forming, with no limit on the number of refills in a single sequence.

Refills chain into each other, so one spin can pay several times over. All wins from the whole chain are added to your balance once the sequence finally stops. Nothing is banked mid-sequence, and nothing is lost if the chain breaks: you simply keep what the winning steps paid. Each new refill is a fresh roll of the grid too, so symbols that had no part in the first win can still form the next one.

Symbols and Scatters

Fish, ice cubes and a treasure chest fill the grid. The Scatter is present on all reels and pays on any position in the main game; during the free spins round it exists only to retrigger. Because Scatter pays and combination pays are calculated separately, a spin that lands both a paying cluster and a paying number of Scatters settles both amounts.

To see the payouts, the Menu’s Money Bag button opens the full paytable. The Menu also holds the game rules and the volume settings, so everything about how the game pays sits behind one button.

Autoplay and Turbo

Autoplay comes in basic and advanced flavours. Basic simply sets a number of rounds. Advanced adds stop conditions, each of which halts the run when its condition is met:

• On any win
• If the bonus game is won
• If a single win exceeds a sum you set
• If your cash balance increases by a figure you set
• If your cash balance decreases below a figure you set

Any number of these can be set at once, and the run stops the moment one of them fires. The remaining spins show on the button while a run is active, and the Stop Autospins button ends it at any point.

A max bet button is governed by your balance and the operator’s settings, so what it stakes varies from casino to casino. Turbo mode speeds the spins up via a checkmark in the menu and can be switched off again the same way.

Free Spins and Multiplier Symbols

The bonus is a straight scatter trigger. Four or more Scatters anywhere on screen awards free spins, and the count scales with how many land:

• 4 Scatters – 10 free spins
• 5 Scatters – 20 free spins
• 6 Scatters – 30 free spins
• 3+ Scatters during the round – 5 additional free spins

During the round itself, Scatters do nothing but retrigger. The free spins run on the same 5×5 grid with the same refill rules as the base game, so everything you already know about how wins form carries over. The difference is what else can land.

The Multiplier Symbol

The multiplier symbol only appears during free spins, and it’s the whole reason the round is worth reaching. It stays on screen until the end of the refilling sequence, and each one that lands takes a random value between 2x and 100x.

When the tumbling sequence ends, the values of all multiplier symbols on screen are added together and the total win of that sequence is multiplied by the final figure. A long refill chain with several multipliers stuck on the grid is where the real money in this game lives.

Buy Bonus and Chance X2

Buy Bonus

You can buy your way straight into the free spins round. The price is shown above the button, and it scales automatically with your bet: raise the stake and the buy price rises with it. The next spin after purchase triggers the bonus game, and the button is deactivated while a bonus is running, so there’s no way to stack one purchase on top of another mid-round.

Chance X2 Booster

The softer option is the Chance X2 booster, which increases your bet in exchange for better odds of triggering the bonus naturally. It can’t be combined with the Buy Bonus: activate one and the other switches off. It’s a middle path for anyone who’d rather not pay the full buy price up front but wants Scatters to land more readily.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Playing it is a lot like the picture on the tin: a patient wait by a hole in the ice, and the fisherman is you. The base game ambles, refills keep it from feeling dead, and the one reason to sit through it is the free spins round, where multipliers settle on the grid and hold their nerve through whole refill sequences before paying off together. When that timing works, it’s the best thing here by a distance, and it’s what the whole game is built to deliver.

The weakness is just as clear: there’s nothing in this game that a hundred others aren’t already doing, and the frosty dressing doesn’t change a single rule. Every idea is competent and none of it is new.

So it’s for players who like this exact shape of slot, high variance and a stacking multiplier at the end of it, and who’d happily fish the same hole twice. Anyone hunting a fresh mechanic will find warmer waters elsewhere. For everyone else, the rod’s already baited, and the catch underneath is real enough.

Arctic Fish and Cash FAQs

• What is the RTP of Arctic Fish and Cash?

  The RTP is 96.11%.
• Is Arctic Fish and Cash high volatility?

  Yes, Arctic Fish and Cash is a high volatility slot.
• What is the grid size of Arctic Fish and Cash?

  Arctic Fish and Cash plays on a 5×5 grid, with wins formed by symbol count rather than fixed paylines.
• How do you trigger free spins in Arctic Fish and Cash?

  4 or more Scatter symbols anywhere on screen award the free spins round: 4 Scatters give 10 free spins, 5 give 20 and 6 give 30. During the round, 3 or more Scatters award 5 additional free spins.
• What does the multiplier symbol do in Arctic Fish and Cash?

  The multiplier symbol only appears during the free spins round. It stays on screen until the end of the refilling sequence, takes a random value between 2x and 100x, and when the sequence ends all multiplier values on screen are added together and applied to the total win.
• Can you buy the bonus on Arctic Fish and Cash?

  Yes. The Buy Bonus button lets you purchase the free spins round directly, with the price shown above the button and scaling with your bet. There’s also a Chance X2 booster that raises your bet for better odds of triggering the bonus naturally, though the two can’t be active at the same time.
• When is Arctic Fish and Cash released?

  Arctic Fish and Cash’s release date is 20 December 2023.
• Who makes Arctic Fish and Cash?

  Arctic Fish and Cash is made by Popiplay.