89 per cent of gambling companies use SMS to send welcome messages to newly registered users, and encourage them to deposit money, according to research from SMS platform provider Dynmark – but only 10 per cent are using it for time-critical promotions, such as to push in-play betting.

Based on a survey of fifteen of the UKs top thirty gambling companies, the research found that respondents ranked SMS as their third most important customer communication channel, behind telephone and e-mail. However, the humble text beat out apps, which was a distant fourth.

“Given the intensity of competition in the gaming market and the amount of investment flowing in to the mobile channel, it’s astonishing that SMS is not being exploited more than it is,” said Dynmark CEO Paul Putman. “There seems to be so much attention placed on getting mobile apps to work that companies seem to be missing major quick-win opportunities to engage their customers and drive repeat business with intelligently targeted SMS marketing.”

For 74 per cent of companies surveyed, mobile phone number isnt a mandatory field on their registration forms,  while 53 per cent said they pro-actively collect mobile phone numbers from customers whose numbers they don’t already have.