As I understood things, NetEnt decided to pull out of Canada. Not Canada deciding to stop NetEnt. Net Ent have physical slots in places like Vegas AFAIK, at least they were unveiling consoles a couple of years ago at a major show. And they are licenced by at least one online casino in New Jersey. I think they may hope to enter the online market and/or slot floors in Canada, and like WMS they won't be available to us except through the government.
Casinos provided them until they had to renew contracts, but it's not like the day of doom was unknown to VS. They could have given us advance warning for sure.
I joined VS less than a year ago, I'm level 62 and have a VIP host. I wish I did not need to contact him, but he has come through after a few weeks of bad play without me asking, or toss a little something my way when I do ask. I joined mainly because of the battles, and I make sure I get wagering that is higher as I must do it in euros but receive prizes in CAD. But there is barely anything to play anymore, and many of the few that remain are 10 cent spins. I did not have all the free time to play every freeroll, and during times of free coupons for them, often they were full if I did not make sure to register quickly. I also enjoyed some of the paid battles, and most of them that I liked best were NetEnt.
Part of what was value for money spent at VS is not from bonuses, but perks like the free spins.
And there are many of us that were actively working on rewards that we will never get to achieve. Since it's only winning spins, if you like quite a bit of variety as I do, I had no trophies completed, but some were getting pretty close. I'm reasonable sure I'm not close to even on any except maybe CFTBL.
I'm not planning on leaving, there are games I can't play elsewhere (at least not in my portfolio), but there are a lot I can play elsewhere with bonus offers and other loyalty programs. I enjoy the MG games so much more in the download clients.
When Guts withdrew NetEnt from Canada when their contract ended, we had some notice, and a promise to make it up to us otherwise. That's not strictly been true, there have been promos I've asked if they had a CAD substitute for, and the answer was no. This past Monday the game was Little Red Riding Hood, I didn't bother asking as I've been told no before, and I also did not deposit.
BTW, I asked for my DOA stats, and they may have did me a favour. They were not quite as dismal as I thought, about 85%, but thats over tens of thousands of spins, and I had one really good hit (no wildline, but about 4K on a very unusal $9 bet), which helped bring my losses to a more moderate level.
I was of a mindset to just dedicate myself to chasing my first wildline at 27 cents until I got one. I think they did me a favour.
I'm not prepared to blame our government for this, but I do think it's NetEnt's hope to enter our market by not offering online to Canadians.
I do realize VS did not a voice in this, or they would have withdrawn before now. But an mail would have been nice.