GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 14 - October 2010

By Aaron Todd Visitors who walk into the offices of In- come Access will see stunning views of Montreal from three sides of the 23rd floor of the 26-story skyscraper at 2020 University. The view, as well as bright yel- low walls decorated with striking artwork and photography, serves as the backdrop to dozens of men and women who busily work to support more than 100 iGaming clients and a network of more than 18,000 online gambling affiliates. But tucked away in the corner of a glass- walled conference room, where it other- wise might be missed, visitors can also find a Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero, and the plastic guitar controller that is used to play the wildly popular video game. “It sounds very cliché, but everyone here knows how to work hard and play hard,” says Kristin Gaffney, director of client re- lations. “I think everyone gets on really well and I think that helps us support each other and work together.” Working together has been an essential ingredient to the success of Income Ac- cess since the company’s beginnings. Nicky Senyard and her business partner first launched the business in Australia after building affiliate tracking software for Lasseters, a Microgaming casino that closed in 2008. In the process of building the software, they discovered that they had uncovered an untapped part of the budding online gambling market. “There were a whole lot of really big re- tail [affiliate] networks, but there wasn’t anything specifically focused on gaming,” said Senyard, Income Access’s CEO. “We thought that was a niche that we could get into and we developed the software.” After successfully building the software for Lasseters, the company started to find other clients with the same affiliate track- ing needs and was soon selling the soft- ware as a white-label partner. “It was really us responding to a market need,” says Senyard. “As it turns out, it’s been a very worthwhile decision.” Officially launched in 2002, Income Ac- cess grew quickly, finding new clients and eventually moving from Australia to Montreal to take advantage of the Eastern Time zone to better serve their clients in the global marketplace. Since its launch, Bridging online gaming’s numbers gap Income Access holds a unique position between the affiliate and the operator Bridging online gaming’s numbers gap