2026.02.07 Looking at a Canceled Kickstarter (It's not too late though!)

For reasons that don't need to be gone into, we were.....motivated...to look at one of Ken "Whit" Whitman's failed cancelled suspended Kickstarters. This particular one would be the Dice O'Matic, which sadly wasn't actually that bad of an idea, but there really didn't need to be a Kickstarter for it (in our opinion).

Now a lot of links are gone from back in the day, but we're going to run with what we think are a couple of generally safe assumptions: 1) most "general" Chinese produced products available now were likely available a decade or so ago (not like modern electronics, but basic type crap) and 2) these type items were likely cheaper a decade or so ago.

Now either (or both) of these assumptions could be wrong, but they seem safe enough to run with.

Dice O'Matic was launched on July 2, 2014.

Oddly enough, Kenny seems to have logged in to his Ken Whitman Games Kickstarter page earlier this week....hmm.....

Now this is an old graphic we made years ago, but it shows the timeline of this Kickstarter compared to some of the others:

We cannot verify the stop date for the campaign, but there was an end date of July 22, so there may be some wiggle room there, but the last update as of today was made on July 3rd, so just a day in. Looks like Kenny was set to pick up $3075 when the campaign was cancelled, well "suspended" according to the site.

This breaks down to 132 product backers (2 were just for $2 as "I want to help the cause backer"s. This means that at that time Kenny was on the hook to provide 133 Dice O'Matics for prices ranging from $20 to $35, though it appears he was including shipping. Now back in the day he claimed that he wasn't just repackaging bulk product, but adding value by having it custom made. There were claims that he was just buying it off of Alibaba.

"We had more buttons put on 4 total and we adding some BUMPS on the floor to make the dice move unsorted of spin!"

Even when confronted with a then-current link, Ken responded that he was having a product custom made, which is a thing.

"Hey Adam, This is the unit we modified from china. And they did not have a removable glass bubble, or 4 buttons. You may purchase them without the dice and top--- much cheaper. If you purchase 100 or them. i appreciate your concern in your quest to bring new quality product to the market. :-)"

Freedom Units in Red

Now we cannot use that url, but looking at Alibaba today, remembering our assumption #1, we found this: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Wholesale-Bulk-16mm-8mm-Plastic-Casino_1601583988551.html?

Currently, for the quantity needed to fulfill the Kickstarter, we're looking at a unit price (with shipping) of $6.40 ($851.20 total). This makes sense with our assumption #2.

As of the date for the title of this post, these models are available as a one-off on eBay for about $24 (shipping and import duties included). Just look up "Transparent Plastic Cover Automatic Dice Roller Cup" and you should be good. 

It should be noted that this particular model comes with the cover and dice, which Ken said were things he was willing to add as "stretch goals" (remember assumption #1). Also, in one of his videos he kept saying his had a glass dome, but video clearly shows the mold mark from being injected/molded plastic.