Laravel checkbox always empty

I have a weird problem that I can't seem to solve. I have a checkbox:

{!! Form::checkbox('createDatabase', '1', true) !!}

When I submit my form it always gives me an empty string when it is checked. Unless I submit my form and get a validation error on other field and I resubmit it, then I get '1'.

I already tried using true instead of one and some other values but nothing seems to work.

It's weird I have done this a lot of times before and I never had this before.