Fishing: how it plays, odds and payouts

Fishing is an instant game with two stages. First you need a bite. If you get one, the fish you hook is drawn from a table running from an Old Boot (nothing) to a Golden Marlin (40x), and then its size, Regular, Big or Monster, multiplies the pay. Both draws happen on our servers the moment you cast.

How a round works

1. Set your bet and cast the line.
2. A bite comes 42.75% of the time. No bite pays 0x and the round is over.
3. On a bite, the fish is drawn from a fixed species table.
4. A size is drawn separately: Regular (x1), Big (x1.5) or Monster (x2.5).
5. Your bet is multiplied by the species pay times the size.

You do not reel or time anything; the fishing animation reveals a result that is already fixed.

Catches and chances

The chances above are per cast and cover a fish of any size; the pay shown is for a Regular-size fish, and the size multiplier then applies on top. The full set of results is every row times Regular, Big and Monster, which is how you reach 100x (Golden Marlin 40x times Monster 2.5). Overall 34.2% of casts pay something and 20.7% pay more than the bet.

Worked example

Take a Salmon (3x). If it is Big, the pay is 3 x 1.5 = 4.5x, so a bet of 100 coins returns 450 coins. The chance of that exact catch is 42.75% x 13% x 30% = 1.67%, about 1 cast in 60.

Take a Tuna (8x). A Monster Tuna pays 8 x 2.5 = 20x, with a chance of 0.2565% (1 cast in 390). A Monster Golden Marlin pays 100x, with a chance of 42.75% x 1% x 10%, about 1 cast in 2,340.

Notice that species and size are drawn independently. The size has an average multiplier of 1.3 (0.6 x 1 + 0.3 x 1.5 + 0.1 x 2.5), so it adds weight to every bite and makes the small fish slightly less disappointing.

Max win and limits

The top prize is the Monster Golden Marlin at 100x the bet. The game-wide limits of 50,000x the bet and 250,000,000 coins per round are not reachable. Volatility is medium. The return is 96.978% over time, but a cast that returns nothing at all (no bite or an Old Boot) happens 66% of the time.

What matters and what does not

• Casting technique or timing: irrelevant. The server decides before the animation.
• Waiting for a bite: the wait on screen is for show; the bite chance is the same for every cast.
• Bet size: scales the coin amounts only.

If you like a game where one cast in three does something, with occasional surprises, this has the right shape; the guide on volatility explains why a medium top prize still produces long quiet stretches.

How it differs from other instant games

Capsule Toy always hands you something, with a floor of 0.2x. Fishing is the opposite: two-thirds of casts return nothing, which is why its fish pay more per catch. Dragon Egg uses a different kind of tail, where each upgrade doubles the pay.

Play with limits

Coins are virtual, have no cash value and cannot be withdrawn or exchanged for prizes. For adults (18+), for entertainment. Set a time limit before you play; see playing safely in Cashout Arcade.