> One of his later schemes involved opening a checking account with a bank that was offering a promotional $500 to each new customer; he would withdraw the cash at the earliest opportunity, close the account, then repeat the process over and over under assumed names.
He could do this today, without using assumed names, at different banks. Sign up for a bank account that's offering a bonus, comply with the fine print to the letter, get bonus, close account. Repeat at a different bank. This can be parallelized for increased performance. It's minorly lucrative.
There was probably only one local option for this when Larson did it, forcing him to use assumed names. Today there are countless online banking options available. No assumed names required.
$500 is a solid bonus today. That was even more money when Larson was doing this.