Hit jackpot on ignition and want to document.

Awesome win, congrats! I saw you post this over on the Bovada forums too (I post there frequently as well). That's quite a life-changing jackpot and it sounds like it couldn't have come at a better time for you and your family.

It's nice to see actual people winning these instead of the money mysteriously disappearing into the ether. Bovada pays out assuming you weren't doing anything counter to their terms, abusing bonuses, unable to provide ID documentation (but it sounds like you may already be verified if you've cashed out before), etc.

Make sure you get a good accountant that's familiar with cryptocurrency, assuming you're going to be selling the Bitcoin for cash. The last thing you want to happen is this turn into some tax nightmare.

Also, with that much Bitcoin going into a wallet, make sure you and the wallet you use have good security features.

Please keep us updated on your withdrawal progress.

Congrats dude! I would say the $20k installments at least protects you a little from the wild fluctuations of bitcoin. If you did one $306k payment it could swing up or down a lot just during the time between the payment being processed and received.

Congratulations Iamjohnblue that is a spectacular win!

Iamjohnblue wrote:

In two or three years of casual play with ignition, I've both taken a check way back in the day and also withdrawn from bitcoin more recently, never had any problems. But I hear about problems on monster payouts like this.

Main questions...

Is there any way around the daily/3 day withdrawal limits,

They are capped at 20,000 bitcoin. It would take 45 days to get it all.

The previous poster BBBAAA recently won a jackpot at Bovada which is essentially the same operation, and has reported being paid in $20k instalments every 3 days or so. So I'd say the answer is probably no to your question, but they will pay it all out regularly. Resist the urge to play with any of that money and make sure you withdraw it all.

Yeah, exactly. I got a congratulations email from a "Bovada Host" which I imagine you'll be getting soon, in which they asked if I needed help with the withdrawal. I asked about the limits and was told the limits are built into the system or something along those lines, but might be worth asking anyways since in your case it's an even large amount. I'd guess they tell you the same, but you never know.

You can, however, put a single withdrawal request for the entire amount with separate bitcoin addresses (all can come from the same wallet which can generate basically unlimited addresses) and it will get approved as one transaction, meaning after that it's just an automated payment in their system that occurs at the same time every 3 days.

My own 2 cents would be put in the withdrawal for the full amount, then once it's approved see if you can disable logging into your account until the entire transaction is complete to protect yourself against....yourself.

That is good to hear. At least that prevents you from having to log in every few days and submit a new withdrawal, and potentially play away some of your winnings in the process.

Personally, I use BitPay for a bitcoin wallet and you are able to get a debit card to which you can transfer from bitcoin to USD without the usual ~1.5% fee, and then take cash out of an ATM or use it as a normal Mastercard. The other plus is the transaction from bitcoin to USD occurs when you add funds to your debit card which is simpler for tax purposes and keeps it from being kept in volatile bitcoin. By doing that method I was able to save some of the fees associate with, but it did involve more steps. Prior to that I was using Coinbase as an exchange to sell bitcoin into USD and then transfer either directly to my bank account or to PayPal, but that carries a fee and the process leaves the funds in bitcoin for a little longer.

So with Bitpay you send bitcoin there and then they convert that into dollars onto a debit card without any fees?

Yeah, if you have bitcoin in your BitPay wallet, you can load your BitPay debit card with US$ subject only to the minimal network and miner fees. The card costs $10 and there's a $2.50 ATM fee. The nice thing is if you load the card, it's locked into US$ and doesn't fluctuate like bitcoin does.

I signed up this morning, sounds a lot better than having to sell bitcoin. Especially now with higher fees. Thanks.

Congratulations on the massive win!

In my opinion, I think you would be a "lunatic" if you left that much money on any exchange. You should split it up.... and absolutely purchase a hardware wallet (this would be a non-negotiable to me).

I purchased a Ledger Nano X from Amazon. It was the backup version which also comes with a Ledger Nano S.

I use the Ledger Nano X and gave my Wife the Nano S in case anything were to happen to me. Make sure you keep a backup of the seed phrase as well.

There's nothing worst than losing your bitcoin. I say that with the experience of "losing" 37 bitcoin in 2013 when I did a secure reformat of my hard drive and lost my wallet.dat file.

It was a different time back then but I still get heart burn thinking about it. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions. I've got to go get some Pepcid.

Edit:
This is probably me just being paranoid which comes with my job as a Network Security Engineer. This is the time to start brushing up on hardening network security since a lot of people know you won a jackpot 🙂 - Use 2FA on exchanges and definitely get a hardware wallet.

Congrats on the big win! That's awesome and I have to imagine I'd probably pee a bit if I hit it that big.

Definitely agree on not keeping anything in an exchange. Way too many have been hacked and people's accounts wiped out to keep that amount of crypto. Cold wallets (not connected to a network) are the way to go for storage.

Wow, congratulations. For the last 2 weeks, BTC has been going up over 10%.
So, you are getting profit 🙂

Fingers crossed!!!

Any updates on receiving your winnings?