Ignition Casino CHEATING slots jackpot winners, locking accounts for several weeks without explanation

[Dan Druff]

This is really bad, and I'm starting to worry about the financial stability of Ignition.

I have always been against unregulated online casinos like Ignition. You never know if you're getting a fair game. Since you're playing against the house, the incentive to rig their casino games is enormous. If you do suspect you were cheated, you have no recourse other than to complain on social media. Most people do not have a sufficient social media following to get noticed.

While I don't trust the slots on sites like Ignition, I will say that I've long trusted Ignition to pay out winners. Many unregulated online casinos are outright scams -- they'll take your deposit money, but they won't pay you if you win. Up until now, that wasn't Ignition's issue. They've paid people quickly and efficiently. I can testify to this myself, as I was a longtime poker player there, who got frequent (and quick) cashouts successfully.

But that was then, and this is now.

"Mandi Minx" is a longtime member of the poker community. She's 39 years old, from Minnesota, and while not a huge name in poker, has a decent Twitter following of 4500+ people.

I don't know what possessed her to play online slots on Ignition, but for whatever reason she's been doing so. For awhile, she was routinely losing, as does almost everyone else there. Then, on November 2, this happened:

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/#!/x/status/1594514424722853891



Pretty much the ultimate degenerate thing to do -- playing online slots while in a physical casino -- but that's what Mandi was doing, and she had her dream result. She hit a $250k jackpot, and fortunately it was on Ignition, a site associated with Bodog/Bovada, which had a 20+ year history of paying winners.

However, since then it's been nothing but frustration, disappointment, and the increasing feeling that this life-changing event was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Mandi's account has been locked for 3 weeks for no reason, and they will not explain why. It appears they are looking for reasons to endlessly delay paying out, or are trying to find an excuse to steal the money!

Understandably, Ignition wanted to get some verification that Mandi was who she claimed to be:

They also asked for enhanced verification, such was me standing in front of the numbers where I live, holding up my ID, and then another picture of me, holding the days newspaper with a hand written letter, saying I was who I was.

Ignition and Bovada have long been paranoid about "bonus abuse", where people create multiple accounts under fake names, fund them with bitcoin, get multiple new player deposit bonuses, and then run the freeplay in the casino, in an attempt to freeroll Ignition/Bovada. Indeed, such a scheme took place some years ago which cost the sites a lot of money. I understand why they'd want to make sure that the jackpot winner is legitimately the person whose name is on the account.

However, that should not be the concern with Mandi. As you see from her quote above, she sent her ID, took pictures of herself standing in front of the address she registered under, and took another picture holding up the day's newspaper. Mandi herself is also seen on video winning the jackpot -- a coincidence because she was with friends at the time, one of whom happened to be recording her when she won. Additionally, she's had this account for years, and has been playing slots on there with real money since July. This was NOT a case of bonus abuse.


It has now been 3 weeks. Every request Mandi has made for information has been met with the same answer: "We're investigating. Be patient."

They will not explain what they are investigating, nor will they give a timetable. Today, she attempted to call during business hours (Monday-Friday, 9a-5p EST), and asked for "financial services", which is the middle management of Ignition. They would not let her speak to financial services, and again told her to "be patient".



But wait... is it possible Mandi is pulling one over on everyone? Is there a chance she did something shady, and Ignition is rightfully investigating her account? No. Because this has happened to others recently, as well. Read on...

[Dan Druff]

Ignition Casino recommends using bitcoin for deposits and cashouts. That makes sense, but it also means that they have to hold a lot of bitcoin, and are subject to its fluctuations. It is possible that they delegate this task to a payment processor, but even if so, the payment processor also would have to hold a lot of bitcoin, and would be subject to the same risks.

We all know about the problems in crypto lately. Is it possible Ignition or its payment processor held a lot of crypto on collapsed exchange FTX, and now is suffering financial issues? One can only guess, but something is definitely wrong here.

I am hearing reports of other players having difficulty withdrawing. Here is a conversation with one, who claims that his withdrawals keep getting cancelled, and that he was only able to successfully withdraw using Bitcoin Cash, which is a different cryptocurrency than bitcoin. (Note, this is a screen shot of someone else's conversation, not mine.)





Also, a new account showed up on 2+2 in October to claim that Bovada (basically the same site) locked his account after he won a $55k jackpot.

I was referred to Bovada by my mom and I made a small deposit of around $112 yesterday I ended up hitting a decent jackpot on one of their slots around $54-$55k I submitted my withdraw request last night and then wake up this morning to my account being disabled pending review. Has anyone experienced this or have any advice on what I should do? There doesn’t seem to be a customer service phone number anymore and the live chat just told me to wait to hear from them in 24-48hrs. I emailed over a copy of my passport to verify my identity per their request but any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

However, I will say that this guy above is more of the profile that Bovada finds suspicious. The guy created a new account, got a referral bonus (from his mom's referral, no less), and won a $55k jackpot the next day. It is not clear if he ultimately got paid. However, it's important to note that this post was made before the FTX implosion, so while the above situation might have simply been routine security checks, it appears they are screwing Mandi for no apparent reason.

Ignition aggressively promotes their slots, and in fact even signed young poker pro Landon Tice to promote them. If they want to continue pushing their slots upon the online gambling community, they need to pay their winners, and they need to keep them informed if there's any kind of unreasonable delay.

Something very strange is going on here. Is Ignition broke? Are they finding ways to screw their jackpot winners? We need to know this. If we don't get answers soon, I will recommend everyone withdraw their balances from Ignition and Bovada.

[Tellafriend]

caveat emptor in this world, unfortunately.

[Small_Banana]

Bovada, Ignition Casino, and Slots.LV are all sister sites that introduced something called Hot Drop Jackpots. They are "must hit by" jackpots and there are 3 different ones. An hourly jackpot, a daily jackpot, and one that must hit before $250,000. She hit the big one and in the video it says she was risking $200/spin. I don't know if bet size increases your odds of winning. I wonder if Ignition is gonna accuse her of being a professional jackpot chaser. And yes, that is a thing.

[Small_Banana]

Here is a picture of the available jackpots. If you go to ignition, bovada and slots.lv you will see the jackpot prizes are the same...so they are related in some way.

[Sanlmar]

A whole generation has passed since the topic of payment processors has been a focus. Given her age I doubt Mandi could distinguish between Ignition and their processor. Damn fascinating though.

I even doubt the Joey kid could riff about payment processors. Druff’s greatest interview ever was with a payment processor that went to jail. Dopey Joey could Google but never grasp the nuance. Todd is god.

Ignition’s processor prolly got bit by an exchange. The processor prolly is holding a batch of deposits and had not forwarded them to Ignition. Ignition needs to work with their processor and the customer suffers.

The bottom line for this story is lack of transparency

Are online casinos a contracted service to a site like Ignition? Can anyone spot similarities between Ignition’s casino and a casino on another site?

I swore an oath I would never do business with or visit Bodog over a decade ago. Grudges give life purpose.

[Dan Druff]

Bovada, Ignition Casino, and Slots.LV are all sister sites that introduced something called Hot Drop Jackpots. They are "must hit by" jackpots and there are 3 different ones. An hourly jackpot, a daily jackpot, and one that must hit before $250,000. She hit the big one and in the video it says she was risking $200/spin. I don't know if bet size increases your odds of winning. I wonder if Ignition is gonna accuse her of being a professional jackpot chaser. And yes, that is a thing.

She told me she has been playing slots since July, and lost a bunch of money prior to this.

It is very possible she was hammering these slots at $200/spin because she saw the "must hit" amount was getting close.

However, this "must hit" stuff doesn't require expert-level slot analysis in order to figure out when to play. If you see a slot jackpot with a must-hit of $250k and it's close to $250k already, you know to start hammering. Even the most amateur of amateur slot players would realize this. If Ignition is unhappy with people disproportionately playing "must hit by 250k" slots when it gets close to 250k, they shouldn't offer such slots.

There is no world where they can reasonably deny her such a payment, simply because she played the must-hit close to when it would have to hit. That's exactly the point of having a must-hit number.

[Dan Druff]

Oh, and I posted a thread about this on Twitter, and it's getting nice engagement this morning.

Hopefully there is enough publicity about this to where Ignition will find themselves pressured to do the right thing.

I have also messaged Matt Berkey about this, to make him aware. None of this is the fault of Berkey's friend/employee Landon Tice, but the bottom line is that Landon is promoting Ignition slots, and this will end up reflecting poorly upon him if Ignition is cheating people. Maybe Landon can have some influence here and get them to speed up their "investigation" of Mandi's jackpot.

[Sanlmar]

Oh, and I posted a thread about this on Twitter, and it's getting nice engagement this morning.

Hopefully there is enough publicity about this to where Ignition will find themselves pressured to do the right thing.

I have also messaged Matt Berkey about this, to make him aware. None of this is the fault of Berkey's friend/employee Landon Tice, but the bottom line is that Landon is promoting Ignition slots, and this will end up reflecting poorly upon him if Ignition is cheating people. Maybe Landon can have some influence here and get them to speed up their "investigation" of Mandi's jackpot.

Any more than Brady shilling for FTX. Sure their credibilityis damaged but they were compensated for the promotion.

[Small_Banana]

Bovada, Ignition Casino, and Slots.LV are all sister sites that introduced something called Hot Drop Jackpots. They are "must hit by" jackpots and there are 3 different ones. An hourly jackpot, a daily jackpot, and one that must hit before $250,000. She hit the big one and in the video it says she was risking $200/spin. I don't know if bet size increases your odds of winning. I wonder if Ignition is gonna accuse her of being a professional jackpot chaser. And yes, that is a thing.

She told me she has been playing slots since July, and lost a bunch of money prior to this.

It is very possible she was hammering these slots at $200/spin because she saw the "must hit" amount was getting close.

However, this "must hit" stuff doesn't require expert-level slot analysis in order to figure out when to play. If you see a slot jackpot with a must-hit of $250k and it's close to $250k already, you know to start hammering. Even the most amateur of amateur slot players would realize this. If Ignition is unhappy with people disproportionately playing "must hit by 250k" slots when it gets close to 250k, they shouldn't offer such slots.

There is no world where they can reasonably deny her such a payment, simply because she played the must-hit close to when it would have to hit. That's exactly the point of having a must-hit number.

Can you ask her what the exact number was for the prize? Curious if she hit it right near the $250,000 threshold.

[Small_Banana]

The video says $241,000...so it's not even close to the $250,000 to be chasing it.

[Dan Druff]

The video says $241,000...so it's not even close to the $250,000 to be chasing it.

Well it's a lot closer than the $44k shown in your screen shot!

It may or may not have been +EV to chase it at 241k. I'd have to know better regarding the way those slots work (how quickly it rises, how much higher the odds are to hit in the final $500 than the last $10k, etc).

However, it's not unreasonable that she saw this and decided to semi-degen, and was running it at $200/spin perhaps to bring it rapidly closer to the must hit amount.

In any case, accusing her of playing when it got close is not a good enough reason not to pay her.

[Small_Banana]

The video says $241,000...so it's not even close to the $250,000 to be chasing it.

Well it's a lot closer than the $44k shown in your screen shot!

It may or may not have been +EV to chase it at 241k. I'd have to know better regarding the way those slots work (how quickly it rises, how much higher the odds are to hit in the final $500 than the last $10k, etc).

However, it's not unreasonable that she saw this and decided to semi-degen, and was running it at $200/spin perhaps to bring it rapidly closer to the must hit amount.

In any case, accusing her of playing when it got close is not a good enough reason not to pay her.

Yes, they should pay her. I was just trying to think of ways that ignition was gonna try to stiff her. There is a site called AskGamblers that tries to settle disputes between customers and online casinos. I have used them before to get paid from a site slow paying me. They have bodog, slots.lv and ignition blacklisted because they don't have an active gaming license...an active or inactive gaming license for an offshore site is meaningless to me.

I think social media pressure will help get her paid. If they refuse, I don't think anyone should play on bovada, slots.lv, ignition anymore. If anyone likes to play slots, go with stake.com. crypto only, no KYC, and you need a VPN and instant cashouts.

[Dan Druff]

Yes, my tweet about it has 78,000 views (!!), and is getting increasing engagement as the morning wears on.

Landon Tice told me he has also made them aware of the situation. I'm going to ask him to let them know about this thread and my Twitter thread.

My guess is that they will pay her if this pressure continues. Hopefully they do the right thing.

[Sanlmar]

Druff didn’t create a run on Ignition’s customer funds (balance withdrawals).

Ignition ought to be grateful

[PositiveVariance]

Hopefully she gets paid soon. It's bullshit to keep her money for 3 weeks.

As Druff mentioned, the ultimate Degen is playing online slots inside a brick and mortar casino at $200/spin lol. Most degens will try and hide this from friends/family, but obviously she was ok with it as they were there filming it!

The sad thing if she does get paid, I think hitting 250k will make her Degen even harder. I'm surprised they locked the account, usually players will "ride the high" and keep playing large amounts to win more. So unintentionally they may have cost the site some money vs. letting her Degen all that her little heart desires. At the minimum, they cost the site some EV.

Hopefully she has the fortitude to realize it was an extremely lucky hit, and she significantly slows it down.

Even if the machine was in +EV teritorry, being they are linked, there is no guarantee she would have hit it if she kept firing away. The bankroll needed to chase a massive must hit like that would need to be in the 7 FIGURES, if not higher to survive the variance.

A fast slot pace is 1 spin every 3 seconds. This is 20 spins per minute. $4,000 coin in per minute, $240,000 coin in per hour!

Regardless, I hope she gets paid. The last thing that a player should have to think about when they hit a jackpot is whether they will get paid or not.

[Dan Druff]

Book a W on this one

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/#!/x/status/1595540571942453248



Zero point zero chance they pay her today if not for the Twitter thread I started, which got 100k views quickly.

[BeerAndPoker]

Slow paying is a typical practice on these jackpot wins. It's not right but not uncommon.

As for verifying her account it should have been done within 24 to 48 hours.

Having a video was odd but people shouldn't read into that. If anything after what we've seen with her case if you hit a bonus you should have someone film it before starting the bonus play if possible so now you have proof you were the person playing.

A positive thing is I believe like Bovada the cashout amount caps were increased around the start of NFL season where you can take out $20k in BTC per 15 minutes. I think it might be capped at something like $150k-$200k a week but that is way more than the previous $9500 per 3 days.

Ignition isn't broke. They are still Bovada I've talked to the same people calling both places within 30 minutes time before and got the same representative. Those progressive jackpots might be crossed over with Bovada and a few other sites. Those pools grow from all the people playing they are horrible odds slots btw but someone has to win and it's why when they get up there the high rollers go for it.

As for BTC these sites can easily buy/sell quickly they don't have to store that much of any crypto currency at any time. They don't have to deal with much fluctuation plus a lot of the process is automated. You can have bots on exchanges to buy/sell when your wallet gets to to certain amounts. People have this weird theory sites never convert to actual cash or a stable coin then to swap but they must do it all the time. These sites are here to take money from gamblers not risk gambling in crypto holding.

Landon Tice being an ambassador for Ignition saying this isn't his department is a lazy attitude to have. He most certainly could mention to his contacts at Ignition that they really need to take care of this. I see he has 24.5k twitter followers who would rather see updates on poker/gambling and views on the industry than hearing about his dieting regimen.

Twitter poker/gambling related stuff can be very toxic but at least when these scams come around their are enough people willing to put in there two cents to help come to a positive resolution.

It makes no sense for a site as long as they are reputable to not pay someone promptly. People have choices where to play and it's a bad look for them not to take care of it asap.

Mandi shouldn't worry now about playing there as long as her cashout process goes smoothly because she is verified. If they try to stick it to her next time if she was to get lucky again it would be an even worse look for Ignition but they might have lost her as a customer.

If they lock her account where she can't play or withdrawal during this process that shows more integrity versus only blocking withdrawals.

The worst online casinos would let you continue to play during the verification process hoping you give the money back to them.

[Dan Druff]

301,000 views of my tweet so far.

Ignition should have just let her talk to middle management and given her a timetable.

BeerAndPoker brings up some good points, but the bottom line was that 3 weeks was excessive, they weren't giving any indication when they'd be done, and they wouldn't let her speak to middle management.

In these situations, you need to turn the pressure on quickly, and not wait for them to try to find an excuse to deny you the jackpot. This publicity basically forced them to make a decision, and one in her favor, because anything else would've looked awful.

[Dizzy]

Agreed with Beerandpoker..Was gonna post something similar yesterday

Also on a site like ignition where the payout is in BTC, there's probably very few people who can press approve on that cashout.
Probably needs to be reviewed by a couple fraud managers, then sent way up the chain to press the button.

The fraud team could have found something small, then bounced that back and forth looking at it for 3 weeks.
Not that I agree with it taking that long, more communication on their end would have been a lot better.