Slow Pay Ignition and Cafe Casino - hundreds of thousands of $$$ locked up for months

[zreb]

TL/DR Version: Big wins at ignition and cafe casino to the tune of 6 figures. Accounts locked at both casinos for 3 months. Half of that time spent on several requests for different account verification documents and poor communication from the casino followed by 1.5 months of just waiting with no updates from the casino. (No bonuses or anything involved.)

So I had some big wins on Cafe Casino and Ignition casino over the past half year, mostly from their progressive "Hot Drop Jackpot" slots they love to promote so much but also some from virtual blackjack.

My accounts have been locked down for a little over 3 months now, but some of the winnings were from even longer ago than that. This is actually the *second* time my accounts have been locked. As I said, I did fairly well on their "hot drop" games a little while after they came out so I was willing to give them some patience to get their things in order since the games were so new. They even called me at the end of the first "lockdown" to talk about their games and what I've played (Bovada/Ignition group is like the only casino I know that does this, I think they want to make sure you are actually the one playing on your account and nothing weird is going on.) But like I said it's been pretty much half a year by this time. That's plenty. They advertise these games relentlessly but apparently don't like to pay out winners, or even worse don't trust the integrity of their own games yet have continued to advertise them for many months.

From the very beginning when I won at Cafe Casino they were drip paying out $2500 at a time, which obviously is not an amount of money to sneeze at but this is a casino group which is constantly running up 6 figure progressive jackpots that they should be able to pay out, especially since cryptocurrency is an option. It's felt like they've been fishing for any possible kind of excuse this entire time - i.e., hold your money for months while they look for any possible reason not to pay. The next few months of delays feel like a continuation of this process.

So it was around mid October when they locked down my account *again.* Presumably for account verification even though my account was already verified, just a couple months prior for Cafe casino and additionally years before that for the rest of the group. The fact that I had an account on both sites was used as an excuse to ask for multiple sets of documents. It was a whole BS process, I won't go into the entire details, but they would reject documents for no reason or explanation (including not accepting a bank statement for proof of address after providing instructions specifically for a bank statement), and basically only responding by copy and paste form letter so I would have no idea what they needed.

For example, they send you a form letter asking for a document, you send in the document, then 4 days later they just send you the form letter again. Did they receive the document? Were the pictures of low quality? Was there an issue with the document? Which types of documents are acceptable for their request? Almost impossible to get an answer. This went on for about a month and a half before completion, I tried my best to communicate with them but it was very difficult. They ultimately demanded specifically a utility bill - literally not accepting any other document for verification. This is something I specifically told them I did not have from the start since utilities were not under my name and I would have to have them transferred, which took time. (This is obviously a ridiculous verification demand since many people don't have their home or apartment utilities under their own name.)

I won't go into more details than that since most won't want to read it and I absolutely don't have the energy to compile everything together again. But I made a post on their own (Ignition casino) forum in December. They deleted the post and banned me from the forum. If you want to read all the details of the BS, i did archive it, but it's somewhat long so this post should be good enough by itself unless you want to see some more of the crap they pull. And again, they just deleted it and banned me on their own forum, guess they don't want anything negative about them there:

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Since the time of that forum post, I did manage to get a utility bill transferred over to my name and submitted that for verification on December 12th of last year (sent to ignition casino). They confirmed receipt on December 14th. Nothing from them since then. I've called and emailed them a few more times but am always told to just keep waiting.

Most of this has been through ignition casino since it was when I withdrew there that my accounts got locked, but I tried reaching out to cafe casino as well on January 18th, asking them what was going on since it had been months since I sent the video requested. Their response was the next day (good), but it was another canned form letter asking me to submit a video of me in front of my house. The exact same thing I already did 3 months ago. So I sent them *another* video of the same thing they requested in front of my house, called them the same day to make sure they actually confirmed receipt of the video, which to their credit they did email me the next day. Of course, that was a week ago and absolutely nothing since then, as per usual.

Now bitcoin is up like 40% so even if they hypothetically paid me tomorrow I still feel like I got screwed out of an enormous amount of money since I had intended to just hold it. Not that it matters I guess, but you can see from some of my old posts they used to be my most recommended casino group, whoops... At least ignition casino can't delete and ban the post on this forum.

Our full writeup on Ignition

 

[The Dude]

Admin note: title changed for admin and SEO reasons.

 

[zreb]

Okay, have a surprise update here I wasn't expecting, but since it doesn't matter now I might as well give away the secret.

I'm not sure exactly when this changed, but these "Hot Drop jackpots" used to tell you when they were about to hit. They were literally designed that way. Big glowing icon. Gets a flashy glowing border. Expands in size. It even makes a sound to provide an audio notification that the jackpot is about to hit. And then the jackpot would hit within the next minute or so. That's not any exaggeration, and it took people a surprisingly long time to catch onto this fact. And based on all of the animations and sounds they created to make it happen, they were apparently happy with the slots being like that. I didn't realize they don't do that anymore. I'm absolutely amazed that system lasted for however many months it was to begin with.

A part of me was still kind of hoping I would get the opportunity to play them again if or when my account got unlocked, so the question I've been asking myself over and over for the several months: do I expose how silly this whole thing is to the world to make sure I get paid, potentially throwing away a huge opportunity?

I had some kind of vision in my head of making a youtube or twitch video and showing people how absolutely nuts the whole system was. Would be really crazy to try it on twitch and have someone watching win the big one. I mean, it probably wouldn't happen, but it actually could have with how crazy the system was. The obvious draw to the video would be that there would be an incredible opportunity to make up to $250k, and anyone who knows the slightest bit about slots would know that this is absolute madness. I don't know if such a video would have had 100 views or 10,000+, and honestly I'm not sure if I ever would have wanted to actually make such a video myself since that's not really my thing, but that was the vision I had in my head, and along with that information to lure people in, tell them how the casino actually treats their players if you DO happen to hit a big win and they feel like messing around.

So I probably would have complained a couple months ago but couldn't decide if I wanted to blow the whole system up, since I'm pretty sure if I did that they would have to change it pretty fast.

To sum it up, while I don't know the exact numbers, you were basically playing a slot with like a 500% RTP, but only for a single minute. Do people understand how crazy that was?

When they first called me, like half a year ago, I actually did tell them this, just less detail and enthusiasm. I told them that most of the time I played I would just wait until the jackpots got big and the final, glowing animation showed up. I always thought I would get paid, but I knew it might take a bit of time to get themselves sorted out. I didn't think it would be over half a year. I tend to be pretty private so I don't want to give out my exact wins and losses, but as an example, earlier on I think I once hit 3 hourly jackpots over a four hour period in the dead of night/early morning one time (I didn't hit a single one in the week before that though despite constantly trying.) So I probably hit like 6 or 7 of those hourly jackpots before I decided to move on and save them for other people (most were the small $550 ones though when no one was playing).

So that's why I was pretty understanding of the first time they locked down my accounts and needed some time to figure it out, but my patience started wearing thin when that "time" was an entire month. But I don't really feel there's any excuse for anything beyond that, the slow and dishonest communication, sometimes flat out ignoring messages (especially their forum moderators on both Ignition and Cafe), the slow/drip paying instead, and just locking my accounts down for these additional last 3 months. Even banning my ignition account when I complained there instead of talking to me. As far as I can tell, just using some absurd account verification (which again, was all completed a month and a half ago) as an excuse to delay and delay and delay.

Instead of screwing around with me for half a year, they literally should have just been able to spend 30 minutes on the phone with whoever designed these games. Like, how could they not know. I don't even understand. If they had called me a second time I probably would have told them because I realized it was unavoidable that they understand how they INTENTIONALLY set up their own games for me to get paid (they were very specifically designed to be like this, as I said there's a giant glowing icon.) But they never really contacted me outside of their form letters so guess I don't know how clearly I would have told them.

So this is what's been going through my head for months, do I go public with this information and absolutely blow up this whole thing or do I just keep it to myself? Well, since bitcoin went up 40% in the meanwhile I guess I chose wrong. I didn't ever imagine it would be this many months of waiting.. (I've also had some other things to deal with outside of anything casino related so that's why I'm particularly unhappy about the timing of this all, it absolutely could not have come at a worse time for me to deal with it than when it started in October.) And obviously, I'm very unhappy with how the casino has treated me. This group was probably where I spent 80% of my time gambling in 2021 to 2022, despite basically getting slaughtered there for 18 months straight until these new jackpots turned things around.

So yeah, that's the one major piece of information that I had in this thread that others didn't. I feel like it's pretty crazy even outside my particular complaints about my own situation, and a part of me is happy I don't have to ponder whether to throw it out there any more, since I already knew I would have been happier if I did but it might be a very dumb thing to do. Maybe it still isn't even in my interest, who knows, but whatever. I obviously don't know what exactly the casino is thinking or they've been doing for the last 3 months, but that's my addendum to add on.

 

[Savatage79]

That sucks man, I haven't played at ignition regularly but I was a big bovada player until I ran into some weird garbage there and I been at slots lv lately which has been so tight its absurd.

But that sucks to hear they are being this way and it sucks to hear because I actually have played these hot drops for awhile now and always wondered how good they may be with paying out on them when its up in 6 figures.

I'm confused on the way you explained the hot drops in terms of winning them. So I only observed that blue king type symbol that pops up, I had assumed you needed 3 of those and then it goes to a wheel of fortune type wheel? Like when you say it lights up which part you mean?

But yea man I'd be pissed, that is awful and is making me reconsider even playing at slots lv.... Unless they aren't connected but I assumed ignition, bovada, slots lv etc... Are all sister sites in ways

 

[zreb]

I'm confused on the way you explained the hot drops in terms of winning them. So I only observed that blue king type symbol that pops up, I had assumed you needed 3 of those and then it goes to a wheel of fortune type wheel? Like when you say it lights up which part you mean?

Yeah so those symbols I'm pretty sure are just window dressing. So basically either you hit it or you don't. I obviously don't know exactly how they coded their system or whatever, but I'm pretty sure there's a completely separate draw for the jackpot. Separate from the actual spin. If you win the jackpot, it then will just give you some random spin that happens to contain those 3 crown symbols. Any other time you see jackpot symbols on the screen is just random window dressing as I said, you weren't actually "close" to hitting anything. You either get 3 symbols or you don't. If the slot throws out one or two symbols, it's basically just trying to remind you that the jackpots exist.

After you get 3 symbols, it would take you to the jackpot wheel, but most of the time you pretty much knew which one you were going to get. Whichever one had expanded with the animation and the big gold lettering (again, it might look slightly different on the top instead of the side but the same idea.)

Let me know if it's still not clear.

And yeah, they used to be one of my favorite groups too. I know I've said this on the America forum several times but I was getting pretty destroyed on these sites before this jackpot thing came about and was on the verge of quitting since it was nothing but constant losses.

Like I said, they all locked my accounts down at the exact same time so even though they technically consider themselves different casinos, they're clearly connected in some way, and seem to share some sort of connected security/casino review team.

 

[Savatage79]

Yeah so those symbols I'm pretty sure are just window dressing. So basically either you hit it or you don't. I obviously don't know exactly how they coded their system or whatever, but I'm pretty sure there's a completely separate draw for the jackpot. Separate from the actual spin. If you win the jackpot, it then will just give you some random spin that happens to contain those 3 crown symbols. Any other time you see jackpot symbols on the screen is just random window dressing as I said, you weren't actually "close" to hitting anything. You either get 3 symbols or you don't. If the slot throws out one or two symbols, it's basically just trying to remind you that the jackpots exist.

After you get 3 symbols, it would take you to the jackpot wheel, but most of the time you pretty much knew which one you were going to get. Whichever one had expanded with the animation and the big gold lettering (again, it might look slightly different on the top instead of the side but the same idea.)

Let me know if it's still not clear.

And yeah, they used to be one of my favorite groups too. I know I've said this on the America forum several times but I was getting pretty destroyed on these sites before this jackpot thing came about and was on the verge of quitting since it was nothing but constant losses.

Like I said, they all locked my accounts down at the exact same time so even though they technically consider themselves different casinos, they're clearly connected in some way, and seem to share some sort of connected security/casino review team.

Ah I see. That just really sucks man, I'd be livid. It makes me less enthusiastic to try and win on those sites honestly.


I've said it many times but I still gotta take my hat off to sloto as they've never given me issues and I regularly snag 1 to 3k checks off them which I know is smaller cash outs to what youre expecting but they are pretty consistent.

While we're talking bovada group... Dude I have been hammering at that lawless ladies forever now and it's like a game I'm attracted to but it does shit. You ever play? I always noticed how the jackpot pops regularly so I always try but the bonus round it's almost impossible to get the cowgirls In winning line.

I find so many of their new games to just be impossible to really do anything in.

 

[zreb]

Yeah, sometimes I'm mad, sometimes I'm just tired. You can't really stay mad for 3 months so it comes and goes. I want to treat their workers I interact with respectfully but at the same time want to convey my displeasure. You never know who is responsible for what though and it's usually not the frontline customer service's fault.

Regarding lawless ladies, I posted a while ago on cyberpunk city which it's a clone of (not sure if it's an exact clone or just close). One of the absolute worst games for me: Cant be to mad at Bovada, this happened last night - Casinomeister Forum

Can talk to you more in the America section on the games if you want but they'll probably get mad if we start going too off topic in the complaints section. But they locked my crosspost in the US section though for whatever reason. Obviously a lot of US people don't visit the rest of the site since 90% of it doesn't apply to them, so that's a little sad.

 

[Savatage79]

Yeah, sometimes I'm mad, sometimes I'm just tired. You can't really stay mad for 3 months so it comes and goes. I want to treat their workers I interact with respectfully but at the same time want to convey my displeasure. You never know who is responsible for what though and it's usually not the frontline customer service's fault.

Regarding lawless ladies, I posted a while ago on cyberpunk city which it's a clone of (not sure if it's an exact clone or just close). One of the absolute worst games for me: Cant be to mad at Bovada, this happened last night - Casinomeister Forum

Can talk to you more in the America section on the games if you want but they'll probably get mad if we start going too off topic in the complaints section. But they locked my crosspost in the US section though for whatever reason. Obviously a lot of US people don't visit the rest of the site since 90% of it doesn't apply to them, so that's a little sad.

Ah my bad didn't even realize where we were lol yea I'll find ya over there in that bovada thread.