There were also plenty of shady operations in those days. I seem to remember some online gaming authorities were particularly bad about not vetting their casino operators. One time we found a casino that had a game (I forget what it was, maybe a video poker variant?) that had a HUGE (5% or so?) player edge when played optimally because of an incorrect payout structure. That casino was blasted with players betting huge amounts of money -- they must have figured something was going on but they couldn't figure out what. They were probably bankrupted within a day or so. Not only did they lock everyone's winnings that had played the game, but they kept their initial deposits as well and shut down the site...
Sounds like a pretty great scam to me. Open a casino with a "broken" game in an easy regulatory jurisdiction (lots of these, most of them are in places with beaches, too), wait for the vultures to descend with their millions in illegal deposits routed from the US via various dodgy places and then just disappear knowing there is virtually no legal recourse for the people who lost money.
