You can blame "bonus hustlers, syndicate players, and sharps", but the fact is Bet Islands went down because of bad management. The book kepts growing for a while which made up for the mistakes, as new deposits were able to cover payouts. At some point the bubble popped. Hopefully SBR becomes better at spotting these books that are able to make payouts because of rapid growth, but once the fast growth stops will be in trouble. No book can grow rapidly indefinitely.