Starburst at Casoola Casino

At a glance

The RTP and volatility shown are the provider's usual published defaults.

How the bonus feature works

When a wild lands on reel 2, 3 or 4, it expands over the whole reel and awards a free respin.

Maximum win published by the provider

The provider lists this game's maximum win as 500× the stake. That number is the mathematical cap built into the design — the biggest theoretical multiplier possible in an extremely rare, high-variance outcome — and not a normal or expected result. The vast majority of sessions end nowhere near it, and no guide, this one included, can forecast or affect individual results on a certified random-number-generator game.

The theme and its origins

Starburst is one of the oldest and best-known slots still widely played at online casinos. NetEnt first released it in the early 2010s, and a large share of operators in this space still carry it more than ten years on — rare longevity in an industry where most games fade from view within a few years. Its simple gems-and-stars theme and fairly gentle volatility are often given as the reasons it stays popular, particularly with newer players, and among the twelve Casoola games in this guide it is, together with Book of Dead, the gentlest and easiest to pick up.

How the mechanics work in detail

Starburst runs on 5 reels and 3 rows with 10 fixed paylines that pay both ways — from left to right and from right to left. This roughly doubles the practical number of winning combinations compared with a one-direction payline slot, without changing the reel strips themselves. A wild landing on reel 2, 3 or 4 expands to fill the whole reel and triggers one free respin; if another wild lands during that respin, the process repeats, sometimes linking several respins in a row.

RTP and volatility for this particular game

With a 96.09% RTP and an official low-to-medium volatility rating, Starburst is often suggested to newcomers because it pays small-to-medium wins more steadily and frequently than high-volatility games such as Fire in the Hole 2 or Tombstone R.I.P. from this guide's Casoola selection, which can go many spins without paying before landing the occasional big win.

How it stacks up against the other games here

Gonzo's Quest-style avalanche games build up to bigger moments with a rising multiplier, and the western and gothic games from Hacksaw Gaming and Nolimit City in this selection go all-in on very high volatility. Starburst's respin and expanding-wild mechanic instead produces flatter, more evenly spread wins — a useful difference when choosing between the catalogue's gentler and wilder options based on the session pace you prefer rather than on the studio alone.

Budgeting and approach

Thanks to its low-to-medium volatility and steady hit rate, Starburst is often recommended to players on a smaller session budget who value playing longer over chasing rare big hits. The expanding-wild respins create enough regular small-to-medium wins to stretch a typical session further than the higher-volatility games among this guide's twelve titles.

Jammin' Jars on mobile

Having been around for so long, Starburst has been tuned for almost every mobile browser and generation of device, making it one of the most widely compatible games in this guide whatever the age or spec of your phone.

The studio behind the game

NetEnt, a Swedish studio with deep roots in online casino gaming, launched Starburst in 2012. That it is still so widely offered more than a decade later is unusual, since most games lose their prime placement within a few years. Analysts and industry observers have credited this staying power to the game's simple, colourful design and gentle volatility.

Fairness testing and RNG certification

Starburst's RNG and paytable have been independently certified for more than ten years across the many jurisdictions where NetEnt holds studio licences, so it is among the most thoroughly and repeatedly tested games in this guide simply because it has been distributed for so long. That certification is separate from, and unaffected by, the operator-identity dispute described in the full Casoola review. Note too that Starburst's fixed 10-payline layout — unlike the cluster or ways-to-win systems in several other games here — means you can read and fully understand the paytable in under a minute, which is one reason it is still so often recommended as a first slot to complete beginners.

Practical tips before you start

Expanding wilds appear only on reels 2, 3 and 4; reels 1 and 5 never get this feature, which is worth knowing when you follow how wilds behave on a given spin.

Because it has been offered without interruption for more than ten years, many operators include it in promotions with low wagering requirements. Given how often it shows up in bonus-eligible game lists across the industry, check whether Casoola's bonus terms specifically exclude or favour this game.

Where it fits in Casoola's wider catalogue

Among the twelve games in this guide, Starburst is the gentlest possible starting point and a natural first choice if you are not sure where to begin before moving on to the higher-volatility western, gothic or tumbling-cluster games that make up the rest of the selection.

Its impressive staying power over more than ten years of continuous play points to a simple lesson in slot design: an approachable game with real, if modest, win potential can outlive far more elaborate and ambitious titles when it is done well from the start.

In the end, Starburst's relevance for over a decade shows that a slot does not need complexity to last. Sometimes a simple formula done well, with an attractive, colourful presentation, is exactly what many players keep coming back to, session after session and year after year.

Starburst variants across the industry

Besides the original Starburst, NetEnt has released a handful of variants that reuse the core mechanic with new visuals or small rule changes. The original is still by far the most widely carried version, including — according to our research — in Casoola's reported catalogue. If you want the classic game described on this page, make sure you are opening the original Starburst rather than a variant, because paytables and feature details can differ between versions even when they share the name and core look.

When comparing it with the catalogue's newer, more complex games, bear in mind that Starburst's continued place in Casoola's reported lobby next to much more recent releases reflects real, ongoing demand rather than mere habit. Operators generally build their libraries around what players actually choose, and the fact that Starburst has stayed for more than a decade suggests it keeps earning its spot through regular play, not nostalgia alone.

Playing it briefly alongside the newer games in the catalogue is a good way to see for yourself why it has remained a staple of the genre for so long.

Whether you spend most of your session here or move on to more elaborate games, Starburst works well as a dependable, familiar baseline for judging other slots, giving you a fixed reference point for comparing volatility and pace across everything else in this guide. Keep that role in mind as you explore the rest of Casoola's reported catalogue.

Put simply, few games anywhere in online casino gaming have proven as long-lasting or as instantly recognisable as Starburst, and that record alone makes it worth a short try for anyone exploring Casoola's catalogue for the first time.

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