Fishing Games Guide: How Fish Shooting Works, Cannon Bets, Multipliers & Where to Play (2026)

What a fishing game is (and why Southeast Asia loves it)

A fishing game is a casino game dressed up as an arcade shooter. You take a seat at an underwater table, usually shared with up to three other players, and schools of fish swim across the screen. You control a cannon at the edge of the table and fire bullets at them. When a bullet catches a fish, you win a payout; when it doesn’t, that bullet is spent.

The key idea, and the one new players miss: every bullet is a bet. Firing a shot is exactly like spinning a slot once. Your cannon level sets the stake, the game’s maths decides whether the shot lands a catch, and the fish you caught decides how much it pays.

Players across the region know the genre by different names:

• Malaysia and Indonesia: tembak ikan
• Vietnam: bắn cá
• The Philippines: fishing games or fish shooting
• Casino lobbies everywhere: a “Fishing” or “Hunting and Fishing” tab next to slots

Why is it so popular here? It grew out of Asia’s arcade fish tables, it feels more hands-on than pressing spin, and the shared table makes it social. Studios like JILI, Fa Chai, JDB, Spadegaming and CQ9 build fishing titles for Southeast Asian players, and nearly every casino we review gives them their own lobby.

Durian tip: Treat a fishing game like a slot with a joystick. The skill feels real, but the outcome of each shot is decided by a random number generator. Budget for it the same way you would for a slot session.

Cannon levels, bet per shot and rooms

Your cannon level is your bet. Raise it and every bullet costs more and every catch pays more, in exact proportion. Lower it and both shrink. A fish worth 20x pays US$2 on a US$0.10 shot and US$20 on a US$1 shot. Nothing else changes: the fish don’t get easier to catch because you pay more per bullet.

Most fishing titles split the action into rooms (sometimes called halls or tables) with different cannon ranges:

• A beginner or low room with the smallest bets per shot, ideal for learning how a title plays.
• Mid rooms with a wider cannon range.
• High rooms with big minimum bets, aimed at high-stakes players.

The exact bet range in each room varies by title and by casino, and it’s shown on the room-select screen before you sit down. Always check it, because a room’s minimum is the least each shot will cost you, even when you’re only plinking at small fish.

Three practical rules about cannon levels:

1. Balance ÷ bet per shot = your number of shots. US$20 at US$0.10 a shot is 200 shots before any wins come back. That’s the number to think in.
2. Changing level mid-session changes your cost per minute. Doubling your cannon to “finish off” a boss doubles the cost of every miss as well.
3. If a bonus is active, the cannon level counts as your bet. A max-bet rule in the bonus terms applies to each shot.

Fish multipliers, bosses and special weapons

Every fish on the table has a multiplier: the number of times your bet it pays when you catch it. The paytable inside each game lists them, and the pattern is the same in every title: the more a fish pays, the less often a shot brings it down.

Check the exact multipliers in the paytable of the title you’re playing. A few examples from JILI’s own game pages show how much the top end differs from game to game:

• Mega Fishing lists a max win of 950x and a Special Octopus Wheel.
• Boom Legend lists a max win of 1,400x, with a Jackpot Crocodile, a Furious Octopus and a Cerberus Wheel.
• Royal Fishing builds up to its boss, the Money Dragon King, which can trigger a multiplier wheel worth up to 350x.
• Jackpot Fishing adds a jackpot wheel, and its high-odds species can arrive with an extra 5x multiplier after being caught.

Special weapons are where titles differ most. Depending on the game, catching a special fish can hand you a bomb that clears a patch of the screen, a laser or drill that cuts through a line of fish, or chain lightning that jumps between targets. They feel like free extra firepower, and in a sense they are: the payout from everything they catch is already priced into the game’s RTP.

Durian tip: Bosses are the advert, small and medium fish are the session. If you spend your whole balance chasing the dragon, one catch has to pay for every miss. Mix your targets and the balance swings less.

How the payout really works: hit chance and RTP

Here’s the plain-English version of the maths. Every shot has a chance of catching the fish it hits. That chance is set inside the game, and it’s balanced against the fish’s multiplier so the game returns a fixed share of all bets over the long run. That share is the RTP (return to player), exactly as with slots, and our RTP and RNG guide explains it in depth.

A simple illustration shows the trade-off. Suppose a game returned 96% and a fish paid 100x. For the maths to work, that fish would have to fall to roughly 0.96% of shots, about once every 104 shots on average. A 2x fish in the same game would have to fall to about 48% of shots. Real titles dress this up with health bars, bonus wheels and special weapons, but the long-run balance is the same: high payouts come with low hit chances.

What that means for you:

• Aim and timing don’t change the odds. There is no pattern, angle or “best time” that beats the random roll, and apps or scripts that claim to are scams.
• Other players don’t change your odds. If someone else catches your fish, it’s gone for both of you, but your odds per shot stay the same.
• RTP is a long-run average. Over a few hundred shots you can finish well ahead or well behind.
• Check the figure. JILI’s public pages list features and max wins but not RTP, so open the game’s info screen at your casino, or ask support.

The swing in a fishing session works like slot volatility: lots of small catches is a low-volatility experience, boss-chasing is a high-volatility one. Our slot volatility guide shows how to size a budget for each.

Worked example: what 300 shots really cost

Fishing games hide their cost well, because bullets feel cheap. So let’s put numbers on a session.

You sit down with US$30 and set your cannon to US$0.10 a shot. That’s 300 shots of firepower. To keep the arithmetic simple, assume the game’s info screen shows an RTP of 96% (an example figure; your title’s number may differ).

1. Turnover: 300 shots × US$0.10 = US$30 of bets.
2. House edge: 100% − 96% = 4%.
3. Expected cost: US$30 × 4% = US$1.20.

So on average, those 300 shots cost you about US$1.20, not US$30. But in a real session you recycle wins into more shots, so turnover keeps growing, and the result can land anywhere from a lost balance to a big boss payout. Your single session will swing around the average.

Now look at what happens as the pace and the cannon level change:

The lesson in the right-hand columns: pace matters as much as bet size. At one shot a second, 300 shots is just five minutes of play. An hour at a US$0.10 cannon is US$360 of bets, twelve times the balance you sat down with, and you only get there by re-firing your wins. That’s why fishing sessions can feel fine one minute and empty the next.

How to use this:

• Pick a bet per shot that gives you at least 300 shots. A US$30 session at US$0.10 does; the same US$30 at US$0.50 gives you 60.
• Know your exit. Set a balance floor (for example, stop at US$15) and a win target (withdraw at US$60), and write them down.

Auto-fire and lock-target: handy, but they burn budget

Most fishing titles offer two convenience tools:

• Auto-fire keeps shooting without you tapping, at the cannon’s full rate.
• Lock-target (or auto-lock) lets you pick one fish and have every bullet steer to it until it’s caught or swims off.

Both are useful: auto-fire saves your thumb, and lock-target lets you focus on one big fish in a crowded school. Neither changes the odds of a single shot. The problem is speed: they remove the natural pauses of tapping, so your bets per minute climb sharply. Lock a boss with auto-fire on and you can pour a hundred shots into it before you notice.

Use them like this:

1. Set a shot count or a balance floor first, and switch off when you reach it.
2. Lock smaller targets more than bosses. Locking a mid-sized fish costs a few shots; locking a boss can cost dozens.
3. Lower the cannon before you turn auto-fire on. If you want full speed, pay less per bullet.

Durian tip: Count your session in shots, not minutes. “I’ll fire 500 shots at US$0.10” is a plan you can keep. “I’ll play until dinner” isn’t, once auto-fire is on.

Fishing games and casino bonuses: what counts

Casinos treat fishing very differently in their bonus terms. Here’s what our reviews found:

• Maxim88’s 288% welcome is a slots and fishing bonus. Deposit at least ≈ US$24, transfer to your Slots or Fishing wallet and pick the 288% offer: ≈ US$24 becomes ≈ US$95. Every slot and fishing provider counts except PlayAce, Mega888 and 918Kiss, with 28x turnover on deposit + bonus (≈ US$2,660 on a ≈ US$24 deposit) within 30 days.
• BK8’s 100% welcome on slots includes fishing, fast games and lottery: up to ≈ US$80 at 12x deposit + bonus. BK8’s own example is a ≈ US$5 deposit, a ≈ US$5 bonus and ≈ US$115 of turnover. You get 7 days, so plan to play it soon after you claim.
• AW8 Pro’s 140% first-deposit bonus counts slots and fishing (not Mega888 or 918Kiss) at 15x. It’s tiered: ≈ US$5 gets you ≈ US$7, and bigger deposits get bigger fixed amounts. The original AW8 site’s 150% welcome is a different offer and only counts slots.
• UWIN33’s Super Boost 333% works on slots plus arcade and fishing games (except Mega888), up to ≈ US$41 at 35x deposit + bonus. It suits a small first deposit: ≈ US$7 becomes about ≈ US$32.
• Slots-only offers: GOD55’s 255%, me88’s 288% and MD88’s 288% welcomes are written for slots, so fishing bets don’t help you clear them.

Two everyday perks matter for fishing fans too. me88’s 1.2% instant rebate is paid on fishing as well as slots, live casino and sports, with no cap and no turnover. BK8’s instant rebate, on the other hand, leaves fishing out. And if you love the leaderboard buzz, Maxim88 and me88 both ran Spadegaming Fishing Frenzy tournaments when we tested: Maxim88’s paid the top 500 players weekly from a ≈ US$558,600 pool per tournament (running until 23 November 2026), and me88’s shared a ≈ US$1,160,000 prize pool with Spadegaming’s Play and Win.

Before you claim, check that the terms name fishing, which providers are excluded (Mega888 and 918Kiss fishing usually go with their apps; see our Mega888 and 918Kiss guides for their own offers) and the max bet, which applies to every bullet. Our bonus terms guide decodes every clause, and the wagering guide shows how to work out the real turnover.

Our casinos’ fishing lobbies compared

Fishing lobby sizes and studios below are as our reviews recorded them when we tested. Lobbies change, so the count you see may differ slightly.

Crypto-only Winna didn’t list a fishing section when we reviewed it, so pick one of the casinos above if fishing is your main game.

Choosing a fishing title and your first session

JILI is the Southeast Asian favourite for fishing, and it’s in the lobby at almost every casino we review. Its catalogue covers every style:

Fa Chai, JDB, Spadegaming, CQ9 and KA Gaming all make fishing titles too, and the lobbies in our table above mix them freely. Our JILI provider page covers the studio’s slots; if you like JILI’s fishing games, Super Ace (97% RTP, low-medium volatility) is a good JILI slot to try next.

Before you commit to a title, open its paytable: it lists every fish’s multiplier and the special weapons, and a title with a huge top prize often pays its small fish less.

Your first fishing session, step by step

1. Pick a casino with a fishing lobby and, for a bonus, terms that count fishing.
2. Register and verify early, so a winning withdrawal isn’t held up.
3. Deposit and transfer to the fishing or slots wallet. If you’re claiming a bonus, select it during this transfer.
4. Set your budget and bet per shot for at least 300 shots: US$30 at US$0.10, or US$15 at US$0.05.
5. Choose a room whose minimum fits that bet, and check the info screen for the RTP.
6. Fire manually for the first 50–100 shots to learn which fish fall easily and what the specials do.
7. Mix your targets. Take a few shots at a boss when it appears, but don’t pour your balance into it.
8. Use auto-fire only with a stop point, and lower the cannon before you switch it on.
9. Stop at your floor or your target, then withdraw winnings rather than re-firing them.

Where to play fishing games

• AW8: the biggest fishing lobby we’ve found, with 196 fishing games on AW8 Pro Malaysia from JILI, Fa Chai, JDB, CQ9 and more, Jackpot Fishing and Ocean King included. AW8 Pro’s 140% first-deposit bonus counts slots and fishing at just 15x, and the original AW8 site pays an hourly instant rebate of up to 1% with no cap. casino.guru rates AW8’s safety Low, so start with a small deposit and test a withdrawal before you go big.
• Maxim88: the best welcome for fishing fans. The 288% slots and fishing bonus turns ≈ US$24 into ≈ US$95 (28x deposit + bonus, 30 days), nine fishing providers fill the lobby, and the weekly Spadegaming Fishing Frenzy leaderboard adds prizes on top. Its instant rebate of up to 1% has no turnover and no cap.
• BK8: the low-wagering pick, especially for players in the Philippines. The 100% slots welcome up to ≈ US$80 includes fishing at 12x deposit + bonus (24x the bonus), and eight fishing studios sit in the lobby. Play it within the 7-day window, and note that BK8’s instant rebate doesn’t cover fishing.

Want more studios? GOD55 carries fishing from 13 of them, including JILI’s All-star Fishing and Dinosaur Tycoon. For every current welcome offer side by side, see our bonuses page.

Fishing games are fast, so set a budget and a shot count before you sit down, and stop when you reach either. If it stops being fun, our responsible gambling page can help.