I actually had a discussion with Netent regarding this issue last week as I work with Videoslots.com. We do our best effort to follow Netent's policy by the book and we are not happy that other operators don't.
Netent's point is that they don't want to act as a police among its operators. It's the operator responsiblity to block the restricted countries and to make sure to be compliant. In all jackpot contracts it is specified that if a player win the jackpot from a restricited country, the jackpot win will be invalid and returned to the progressive account.
Any casino operator who allows for example Canadiens to play their Netent games, especially the Progressive jackpot games, are taking a big risk on the players expense. I think that should be noted on the accredited section. However some casinos might feel that if the jackpot will be hit from a restricted country, they feel they afford to pay it from their own pockets. That should then be noted in their terms and conditions if this is the case. They also have to report this to the MGA if they have a maltese license, as they need to hold the funds seperatley together with player balances and declare this to the MGA every month.
This just isn't good enough. The average player would have no way of knowing that the casino was in breach of it's B2B agreement with the software supplier. With non progressives, NetEnt appear to be saying that casinos can just carry on offering the games in violation of their B2B agreement because NetEnt won't stop them, and as non progressives, the casinos are paying from their own funds in any case.
The progressives are a different matter altogether. The casinos may not have the funds to cover the payout, and it's the player that gets shafted. This is not so different from the Playtech problem where operators void progressives without good reason and pocket the cash, whilst Playtech just looks the other way.
This situation has been going one with NetEnt and Canadians for a while, and so it's a matter of when, not if, the proverbial hits the fan.
It won't be a matter for that one casino and the player either, it's bound to attract massive publicity when it happens, and it could knock confidence in NetEnt not just in Canada, but the rest of the world. One has to remember that most players are not active here, and probably have no idea that this is a disaster waiting to happen.
The casinos who are refusing to block Canadians are not just the rogues, there are some highly regarded accredited casinos involved with this issue.
Canadian players on this forum should not take the risk, but as far as non progressives from NetEnt go, they may as well play whilst they can because NetEnt won't police the rules, and operators can freely flout them and pay from their own float as is always the case with non progressives.
Given the vague legality of this in Canada, maybe the casinos are banking on not being taken to court when they have to tell a Canadian winner that NetEnt have voided their jackpot because of a term in the B2B agreement that the player can't really know about.
When Microgaming faced a similar problem just prior to their complete pull out from the US, we had reports of US players asking "where are all the progressives", and for the most part, they were receiving vague and conflicting answers until MGS told operators that it was something that had been blocked centrally. It was probably down to MGS not wanting to be in the position of having to forward millions of dollars to a player in a country where the payment would be illegal or tarnishing it's reputation by having to void the payout due to an unpublished term.
Such problems would not happen in the old style single supplier download client, it's a problem when a multi supplier platform sits between the game provider and the player, it is then this platform provider that has to ensure their software can block games from players in certain countries, and then it's for operators to implement the facility. This is the latest, and biggest, in a number of issues that are damaging to the trust players have in such products compared to the simpler download client or single supplier models.