Great Blue Slot Review

Recent online slots seem like they have all tried to “one-up” each other. Each new slot seems like it needs to have better graphics, an intricate storyline, and some sleek bonus game. While these are nice, it’s also fantastic to return to the basics – sometimes a fun, lighthearted, intuitive five-reel online slot is all you want!

Released in 2013, the Great Blue slot is that game. As we’ll see in this review, this game is fun and enjoyable, and it’s the perfect game for when you want to sit back, relax, and have a good time gambling at their favorite most played slots casino!

Great Blue Slot Theme

The theme of the Great Blue slot is quite simple: this game takes the player on an underwater journey with whales, starfish, clams, sharks, fish, seahorses, and more. If you love the ocean (and who doesn’t), you’ll love Great Blue. One of the more remarkable aspects of Great Blue is the fun yet simple first impression it makes on players! You’ll see an elegant but basic interface when you load it. There will be brightly colored starfish or sharks in the reels. And, when you spin, it’s always fun seeing the symbols go around, including the whales and other sea creatures. There isn’t much else to the theme; however, in a world where online slots have moved to complicated storylines and (sometimes) profound social commentary, Great Blue feels refreshing. It’s a simple slot that, as we’ll see, pays well and gets the basics remarkably well done!

How to Play Great Blue

As noted in the introduction, Great Blue is a relatively simple game. Playing it, therefore, is straightforward. All you need to do is set your bet amount per line, the number of lines you want (typically the maximum of 25) and press the spin button! The reels will spin, and one of two outcomes will happen: you’ll receive a payout, if any, for the symbols on the reels, or you’ll have three or more scatter symbols and trigger the bonus game!

It is worth noting that this slot does not have any of the fancier auto-spin features that more modern slots have – in fact, it has no auto-spin capabilities at all! Therefore, you will have to click the spin button whenever you want to spin the reels!

Symbols and Bonus Features

There are a total of 13 different symbols that you may encounter during the game. Those symbols are:

• Whale (wild)
• Clam with a pearl in it (scatter)
• Shark
• Turtle
• Seahorse
• Starfish
• Fish
• Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9

There is only one bonus feature present within this game, and that is the Sea Shells Bonus. You will activate the Sea Shells Bonus whenever you receive three or more clam symbols on the pay lines. The Sea Shells bonus is relatively straightforward, but it is a lot of fun! You start with eight free spins, but before those spins happen, you get to pick two of five sea shells (hence the bonus game’s name). Each of these sea shells might contain more spins or a multiplier. Any multiplier will multiply your total winnings by that amount at the end of the game.

The sea shells contain up to 33 free spins or up to a 15x multiplier!

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the bonus game is that receiving three or more scatter symbols within the bonus game will add 15 free spins. And, each of those 15 free spins will have the same multiplier as the others. So, as a quick example, let’s say you get your eight spins and pick two clams: one with a 15x multiplier and one with five additional free spins. That gives 13 free spins at a 15x multiplier. Let’s say you do three of them and get three scatter symbols. With ten spins left, you’d get 15 spins added to that. As such, you would receive 25 more spins at a 15x multiplier. It’s not hard to see how a good bonus round could pay remarkably well!

Great Blue Slot Odds and Payouts

Getting any number between 2x and 5x of a symbol on any given pay line will trigger a payout. However, your payout will double if you have a wild symbol (the whale) on any given pay line. So, if you get three whales in a row, normally, that would be 25x that line’s wager. However, if you get two whales plus a wild symbol, to make it three whales, that payout would be 50x your line’s bet. The table below shows each of these symbols with their non-wild payouts for the upper and lower bounds for the number of symbols in a row (typically 5x and 2x or 3x). Getting 3x or 4x symbols will pay in between those ranges. To figure out what they would pay out with a wild symbol, double it!

Symbols and Payouts

• Shark and Turtle: 750x that line’s wager for five in a row, 2x the line’s bet for two in a row.
• Seahorse and Starfish: 250x for five in a row and 15x for three in a row. This symbol does not pay for two in a row.
• Fish: 400x for five in a row and 20x for three in a row. Like the seahorse and starfish symbols, this one also doesn’t pay anything for just two.
• Ace and King: 150x for five in a row, 10x for three of these symbols.
• Queen, Jack, and Ten: 100x the line’s wager for five in a row and 5x for three.
• Nine: 100x for five in a row and 2x for two in a row.

The scatter symbols (clams) also pay out in addition to triggering the sea shell bonus for three or more in a row. You’ll get 500x the line’s bet for five in a row and just 2x for two in a row. Finally, the wild symbol (whale) also pays out independently. Receiving five wilds in a row on any pay line will pay an impressive 10,000x your line’s bet! Receiving two in a row pays 10x the bet. As you can see, there are quite a few opportunities in Great Blue to have a significant payout! If you get five sharks, five wilds, or even five fish in a row, you might be looking at winning quite a bit of money!

Great Blue RTP and Volatility

The return-to-player, or RTP for short, measures the amount of money a player can expect to get back on average from each spin. If a player could expect, statistically speaking, to get $1 back for every $1 they put in, the RTP would be 100%. However, if they could only expect fifty cents from every $1, the RTP would be 50% since the casino would, on average, keep the other $0.50. The higher the RTP, the more likely it is for the player to win and the easier it is, statistically speaking, to keep playing for longer.

The RTP for Great Blue is 96.03%. While this doesn’t make it the highest-paying online slot, it is a much higher RTP than you would get with most land-based casino slots. Those are typically in the 93% or lower range, as they have quite a bit more overhead. Volatility is a measure of how often the slot pays out. Higher volatility slots are more “exciting” as they pay bigger wins but less frequently. Lower volatility slots pay more but in smaller wins. The Great Blue slot is a high-volatility game, meaning that you should expect bigger wins to happen, with periods between each win.

Who Makes the Great Blue Slot?

Playtech is a gaming software company founded in 1999, and this group is the brains behind Great Blue. If you have ever played other online slots, you likely have already experienced some of the games they make, including the Age of the Gods series, the Book of King’s series, Egyptian Emeralds, Fortune Day, Jungle Giants, and many more. Indeed, these slots are prominent in any best slots casino!

Can You Play Great Blue on Mobile?

Yes! Like most Playtech slots, Great Blue plays quite well on iPhone, iPad, Android devices, laptops, and desktop computers, meaning that no matter how (or where) you like to gamble, you’ll be able to play Great Blue. It’s also worth noting that Great Blue’s interface makes it particularly well-suited for touch-enabled devices. So whether you’re playing on your phone, tablet, or even a touch-enabled laptop, you’ll have a fantastic time playing this slot!

Great Blue Slot Review: A Whale of a Good Time!

As you can see from this Great Blue slot review, this game is impressive in many ways. It has a simple yet accessible theme that is quite enjoyable. Technically, the game features a decent RTP, and the volatility makes it incredibly fun to play at any most-played slots casino (and who doesn’t love the possibility of winning up to 20,000x their wager?). Indeed, this is a game you must try whenever you’re perusing a best slots casino that features Playtech slots. It may sound corny, but it is true: you’ll probably have a whale of a good time!