[Nortonesque]

I have a vague recollection of someone mentioning a verifiable card deal, where all the players get a "piece" of the random number, and afterwards the legitimacy can be verified using everyone's pieces. IIRC its weakness was if someone dropped out, no one else could verify.

One interesting model for an online poker system might be to separate the poker playing from the payment system. I.E. anyone can start a table and invite specific players, and access the chip counts. There would be nothing stopping a 3rd party from using the system to provide real money games, be it an overseas payment processor or a group of friends playing a home game.