Merkur

Every figure on this site is read off a game’s own rules screen. Merkur’s two games are the only ones where that could not be done. Neither client lets you page through a rules screen the way a Pragmatic Play game does, so the numbers on our Eye of Horus and Fishin’ Frenzy pages came from the next place along: the initialisation response, the block of setup data the studio’s server sends the client when the game loads. Both were read on 20 August 2026.

The detour was worth more than the rules screen would have been. A rules screen prints a number. The server sent a number and a label, and the label is the half worth reading.

The field that needed a name

Eye of Horus loads with two values sitting next to each other in its setup data. One reads rtp: 96.31. The other reads profile: standard.

The number is unremarkable. 96.31% sits below the informal 96.5% convention most modern slots hold to, and not by much.

The label is the find. The server does not simply state a return to player. It states which configuration produced that return, in a field whose only purpose is to tell this configuration apart from the others. Software does not name the version of itself it is running unless there is more than one version to name.

Multiple RTP builds are an open secret in this business. Studios supply the same title to different operators in different configurations, and nobody tells the player which one they have been handed. Reviewers normally infer it from four sites quoting four different numbers, which is inference, not evidence. Here the studio’s own software states it before the first spin, and it is the clearest proof this site has that the RTP on a comparison page may not be the RTP you are playing. The longer version of that argument is in what a slot’s three numbers actually tell you.

It cuts against us too. 96.31% is what the public demo build reports with no operator jurisdiction attached, which is presumably why the profile reads “standard”. Your casino may have licensed a different one. Our Inspired Gaming review sets the contrast out. The launch parameters of the one Inspired build read for that page on 20 August 2026 declared a GB jurisdiction and an en-GB locale, and the same comparison recorded Eye of Horus and Fishin’ Frenzy as jurisdiction zz, meaning none. Merkur’s builds name a profile and leave the country blank.

Four builds, and the sequels come in lower

Each of these four figures was read the same way, out of the build’s own initialisation response. Two originals and their two sequels:

• Eye of Horus: 96.31%, read 20 August 2026
• Eye of Horus The Golden Tablet: 95.20%, read the same day, 1.11 points lower
• Fishin’ Frenzy: 96.12%, read 20 August 2026
• Fishin’ Frenzy Big Catch: 95.32%, 0.80 points lower. Our record of this one carries the figure without a read date, so this page does not attach one to it

The reading method matters as much as the result. Every one of these numbers came out of a build’s own setup data rather than off somebody’s listing, so each pair compares like with like. A rules screen figure set against a figure lifted from a comparison table is not a comparison at all.

1.11 points is not a rounding difference. Eye of Horus keeps 3.69% of stake in theory. The Golden Tablet keeps 4.80%. That is about 30% more of your money over time, on a game that presents itself as the same game with more artwork on it. The fishing pair is narrower and runs the same direction: 3.88% against 4.68%, so roughly a fifth more.

Two families is a pattern, not a law, and four builds is all we have read. If a fifth breaks it this page will say so. But the sequel is the one being marketed to you, and so far the original is the one returning more.

What both games do the same way

These are betting shop games that moved into a browser and were not redesigned on the way. Both are five reels and ten fixed lines. Both have one feature, built on free spins and a scatter. Neither has a tumble mechanic, an expanding grid, or any of the machinery that has been fashionable in slot design for a decade. There is nothing to learn before you start.

The habit that actually costs readers money is the paytable convention. Prizes in both games are multiplied by the line bet, not the total stake. It is the older convention, and the most common way a player overestimates what they are looking at. On Eye of Horus, the top symbols pay 500x for five of a kind. On a £2 spin across ten lines, the line bet is 20p, so that 500x is £100. It is not 500 times £2.

Eye of Horus carves out one exception, and it is the right one: the scatter pays on total stake, at 50x for five, 20x for four and 2x for three. Read that distinction before you read any paytable inside a game of this generation.

Neither game reports a maximum win, so neither of our pages carries one. There is no headline multiplier on either, which at least keeps the maths and the marketing from contradicting each other.

Where the two games separate

Put them side by side and they look like the same game in different costumes. The stake ladders say otherwise.

• Eye of Horus: 10p minimum, £100 maximum, £2 default. Ten lines, so the floor is a penny a line.
• Fishin’ Frenzy: 20p minimum, £400 maximum. Ten lines, so the floor is 2p a line.

Four times the ceiling on two games of the same shape and era. £400 is high for any slot on this site: most stop between £240 and £300, and those are busier products. Fishin’ Frenzy will take twice the stake of Sugar Rush 1000 on a single spin. Eye of Horus stops at a quarter of Fishin’ Frenzy’s ceiling, and at a third of Buffalo King Megaways. Nothing in the artwork tells you which of the two you have opened.

The feature rules separate them too. Fishin’ Frenzy’s own award text states plainly that free games cannot be retriggered. The spins you trigger are the spins you get, and whatever the fisherman collects, he collects inside that window. Set that against Big Bass Bonanza, Pragmatic Play’s take on the same collect mechanic: it retriggers three times and lifts the collection multiplier to 2x, then 3x, then 10x. The entire top end of that game lives in the retriggers. Fishin’ Frenzy invented the mechanic and kept the smaller version of it.

That is part of why the scores differ: Eye of Horus takes a 7, Fishin’ Frenzy a 6.5. Fishin’ Frenzy’s 96.12% is the lowest return of any slot reviewed on this site, and only Crazy Time, a live game show, states less, and it is not buying a bigger ceiling anywhere. It is simply a lower return, on the most played fishing slot in Britain.

The number came off the wire, not off a screen

On every other studio covered here, the return is somewhere a player can reach. You page through the rules and it is printed. Merkur’s two clients have no such screen, so 96.31% and 96.12% are on our pages for one reason: the studio’s server handed them to the client before the first spin, in setup data written for the software rather than for the person playing. It is disclosure of a sort, and a stranger sort than the grid below can record. Precise, complete, labelled with the configuration in use, and addressed to nobody who is actually in the game.

What the grid does show is the shape of the two rows. Return present on both. A volatility rating present on both, medium-high on Eye of Horus and medium on Fishin’ Frenzy. Minimum and maximum stake present on both. Maximum win absent on both.

Game	RTP	Volatility	Max win
20p Boost Roulette	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Aviator	Stated	Stated	Not stated
Big Bass Amazon Xtreme	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Bonanza	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Christmas Bash	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Crash	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Big Bass Day at the Races	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Halloween	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Splash	Stated	Stated	Stated
Big Bass Vegas Double Down Deluxe	Stated	Stated	Stated
Buffalo King Megaways	Stated	Stated	Stated
Chicken Road	Not stated	Not stated	Stated
Crazy Time	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Eye of Horus	Stated	Stated	Not stated
Eye of Horus The Golden Tablet Megaways	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Fishin' Frenzy	Stated	Stated	Not stated
Fishin' Frenzy Even Bigger Catch	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Fishin' Frenzy The Big Catch	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Fishin' Frenzy The Big Splash	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
JetX	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Le Pharaoh	Not stated	Stated	Stated
Mines	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Plinko	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Rocket Reels	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Spaceman	Stated	Not stated	Stated
Starlight Princess 1000	Stated	Stated	Stated
Sugar Rush 1000	Stated	Stated	Stated
Sweet Bonanza	Stated	Stated	Stated
Sweet Bonanza Super Scatter	Stated	Stated	Stated

The company section on this page is short, and the length is the finding. Merkur is the German group behind a large slice of what British betting shops put on their terminals, and Reel Time Gaming and Blueprint Gaming sit in the same family. That is what this site holds on the corporate side, so that is what it prints. No founding year, no head office, no parent company and no catalogue count have been recorded here, so none of them appears above. That is a statement about our records rather than a claim about what the studio publishes on its own pages, and if you have read one of those figures somewhere primary, the address at the foot of this page works.

One attribution this page cannot verify

Fishin’ Frenzy’s demo build is served by Blueprint Gaming, and this site files the game under Merkur because the two brands sit in the same German group. We hold no primary source that lists the studio brands inside that group, so we cannot point at one for the org chart, and will not pretend otherwise. What we can vouch for is the build: the RTP, the stake range and the no-retrigger rule were read out of the client that loaded, on the date stated.

Reading these two before you spin them

The paytable is the first trap, and it is the one that costs money quietly. On both games prizes multiply the line bet. Ten lines, so a £2 spin is a 20p line bet, and the 500x on the top row of Eye of Horus is £100 rather than £1,000. The scatter is the exception and pays on total stake, at 50x for five, 20x for four and 2x for three. Work out which of the two any prize is quoted against before you read a single row, because on a game of this generation the table always reads larger than it pays.

The second is the feature rule, and Fishin’ Frenzy states it in its own award text: free games cannot be retriggered. That is not small print on a game whose closest rival retriggers three times and lifts its collection multiplier at each one. The spins you trigger are the spins you get, and if you have arrived expecting the round to keep extending itself, it will not.

The third is the stake ladder, because these two do not share one. £100 on Eye of Horus and £400 on Fishin’ Frenzy, on two slots with the same five reels, the same ten lines and the same single feature. Nothing in the artwork marks the difference, so a stake you set by dragging the same slider is four times the money on one of them.

Then there is the number itself, which is the whole reason this page exists. What our figures describe is a public demo build with no jurisdiction attached, running the configuration the server calls standard. Your casino may have licensed a different profile, and the information screen inside the client you are in is the only place that settles it. On these two the studio has already conceded in writing that more than one version exists, which is more than most studios will tell you.

Both review pages carry a free play demo. Those are play money builds: no account, no deposit, nothing real to win or lose. Real money play is for over 18s only, and no amount of reading a rules screen changes the fact that a slot is designed to return less than it takes.

What readers ask about these two games

Why do different sites give different RTPs for Eye of Horus?

Because the game ships in more than one RTP configuration and each site read whichever build it happened to load. Most studios leave you to work that out. This one names the profile it is running, in the data it sends the client.

Is Eye of Horus The Golden Tablet better than the original?

Not on return. The original reports 96.31% and The Golden Tablet reports 95.20%, a gap of 1.11 percentage points, which roughly doubles the house edge relative to a 96.5% game. The fishing family runs the same direction.

Can you retrigger free spins on Fishin’ Frenzy?

No. The game’s own award text states plainly that free games cannot be retriggered. Whatever the fisherman collects, he collects inside the window you triggered.

Is Fishin’ Frenzy the same as Big Bass Bonanza?

No, though the resemblance is not accidental. Fishin’ Frenzy came first and established the fisherman collect mechanic. Big Bass Bonanza is Pragmatic Play’s take on the same idea, with retriggers, a collection multiplier ladder and a higher stated return.

If a client you load reports a different figure from ours, that is the thing this page is about, and we would like to know. Corrections go to [email protected], and the date on each review is the date its figures were last verified.

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