From the press release in your post:
" ... PokerStars will pay a substantial amount of money to the United States, and the government has agreed that all U.S. players will have an opportunity to request that they be compensated out of those funds for their losses."

Notwithstanding the large number of U.S. players who were playing online poker for money, wasn't it ALWAYS illegal? I think its great that players have the opportunity to recover their losses, but it seems that by requesting a refund, players would be giving the U.S. government their identity and essentially admitting that they broke the law previously. I doubt that there's much risk of prosecution, but unless they give "amnesty" to the refund requesters, there seems to be a risk of self-incrimination.

On a related note, for any player that was a net winner in playing, there's tax reporting to be done, perhaps with prior-year amended returns. Maybe everyone reported their gambling winnings in the year earned though.