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I would guess there is a lot of work and bureaucracy to get to the "refund" part after the investigation is finished. They have to get it "right" given their standards and ways of doing things.
Not their standard piece of cheating, a very complex matter with many people involved on every corner.
It is also made more complex/sensitive as the regulator has asked for explanations of how the compensation is calculated.
In the past compensation has been given without any accountability re the amount or the calculation. That's no longer the case, it will need to be explained to the regulator and that means that it has to have some sensible rationale behind it not just a simple division of seized funds (maybe with a top up) based on say loss to those players or total hands played against them - distributed as the end of the process, closing the case. it needs to be explained/justified now.
TBF I am not sure what a "fair" distribution would be, especially as some will have beaten them, others lost big to them. Any player that beat them is adding to the net losses total of other players so if we say $4m net win, if winning players are say another $1m then the losing total is $5m - but is full compensation of all loses appropriate? Just seized funds and rake?
It's likely losing players lose anyway so what proportion of losses vs a bot is "fair"? Maybe "winning" players vs the bots would have won more vs humans, maybe they won more vs the bot than human opposition?
If you distribute an amount per hand then winning players get compensated, is that right? Remember some of the compensation pot might be from rake paid by opponents some from seized funds and potentially some as a Stars top up.
I doubt there is a simple compensation formula that is fair to all (including Stars).
Plus we have the problem of compensation funds now vs potential in future. Darren Woods related compensation included (basically was) £1m seized by the courts from Woods. That came years later, after a prosecution. Now here I doubt there would be much to be got but if the authorities got slick at these things then they might be able to seize assets/bank accounts from the offenders beyond what is left in the Stars account, that might take years to seize rathe than just freeze so it might be that there could be more than one round of compensation. If so how does that affect what should be paid in round 1?
It is not a simple question.
Sorry if my nagging the UKGC to get visibility of compensation calculations/amounts is slowing it down but long term I think it is healthy for us all - including Stars.