Tag Archives: racing

Mar 13 2013

Cheltenham Festival likely to encourage rise in mobile betting

Summary: Mobile gambling could increase with the start of Cheltenham Festival today (March 12th).

If there was ever a time for gambling enthusiasts to start making wagers on their mobile phones, it’s the first day of the Cheltenham Festival.

Kicking off today (March 12th), major betting firms like Ladbrokes, William Hill and Paddy Power are sure to find most of their customers are putting money on their favourite horses while they’re at work or out and about.

Indeed, an article for City AM has noted the largest of the leading bookmakers, William Hill, is expecting consumers will spend a record high of £50 million across its retail and online operations during the four-day event, with more than 4.5 million bets thought to be made.

And as the mobile channel continues to tighten its grip on the digital landscape worldwide, more punters will be looking to their handsets to make bets on the move, instead of waiting around at home for their computer to start up.

The news provider stated William Hill has predicted that £1 in every £5 wagered will be done on mobile phones, while half of online bets will also be logged in this way, compared to one in ten last year.

In order to capitalise to the best of their ability via mobile platforms, betting firms should interact with customers during big races over the coming days to retain loyalty and inspire confidence for future sporting events.

This could be achieved via SMS messaging and sending clients stats about races they may have missed or encouraging them to bet-in-play by texting a wager to the firm. A highly-optimised mobile experience is guaranteed to both leave consumers satisfied and bring in revenue for the bookmaker.

It was recently revealed that Paddy Power raked in huge returns on its pre-tax profits for 2012, after the gambling business reported a 15 per cent surge in revenue to €139 million (£120 million).

According to the firm, its online accounts made up around three-quarters of the profits, while mobile betting with the company has experienced growth of around 185 per cent in the last year.

Dynmark helps betting companies engage customers through fully automated SMS communications; from welcome and activation to in-play bets and service messages. With proven experience integrating with gaming platforms such as Playtech, Dynmark has been providing SMS messaging and services to the gambling industry since 2006. Read more about Dynmark’s betting experience here.

Nov 15 2012

US casino expands mobile database with SMS marketing campaign

The gambling sector was one of the few industries always considered to be recession-proof but the 2008 crash hit even some of the largest casinos, especially those based in the US.

A report from the American Gaming Association revealed that even casinos based in traditional ‘gambling Meccas’ such as Nevada and Atlantic City were hard hit. In fact, figures show that Nevada (the home of gamers paradise Las Vegas) experienced a ten per cent fall in casino revenue in 2009 – the greatest decline in its history.

New Jersey casinos saw revenue drop by 14 per cent, while more than a third of gambling establishments in Atlantic City filed for bankruptcy.

In light of this, many casinos looked at how to turn around their fortunes by embracing mobile marketing in order to reach out to a larger customer base.

One such casino was the Belterra Casino Resort.

Based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the casino was looking to build a mobile database so that they would be able to contact a new batch of customers in the future with promotional text messages and other news content.

For its campaign, Belterra Casino Resort opted to target consumers in three nearby areas – Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati, reports the Mobile Marketer website.

In order to get mobile phone users’ numbers, the casino created a text-in SMS sweepstakes campaign which offered the lucky winner a one night stay at the resort and $100 in casino credit. Once a customer had text in the keyword BELTERRA to shortcode 74642 to enter the competition, they received a double opt-in request which gave them the chance to win an additional ten chances to win if they accept.

An advertising campaign was created by Insight Media to promote the SMS competition, with local TV channels running ads on select shows and at specific time slots to reach the target demographic.

Overall, the SMS campaign was a complete success, with thousands of consumers based in the three target locations texting in to enter the competition. Of this group, around 60 per cent agreed to double-opt in and receive extra promotional messages from the casino in the future.

Belterra officials were delighted with their first foray into mobile marketing and are looking to launch more campaigns in the future which capitalise on their new and expanded customer database.  As the resort created a mobile marketing database in the right manner, its customers are more likely to be receptive to any messages they receive – resulting in a high return on investment for Belterra.

Casinos and betting exchanges are also likely to rely on social gambling to push up revenues in the future, according to Juniper Research.

Global annual wagers via mobile handsets and tablet computers will rise to $100 billion by 2017, up from less than $20 billion in 2011. A rise in social gambling activity will help drive this growth, along with the launch of intrastate casino and lottery services in the US.

Dynmark helps gaming companies engage customers through fully automated SMS communications; from welcome and activation to in-play bets and service messages. With proven experience integrating with gaming platforms such as Playtech, Dynmark has been providing SMS messaging and services to the gaming industry since 2006. Read more about Dynmark’s gaming experience here.

Nov 12 2012

Betfair’s mobile bets to reach £2bn in 2012

Summary: Betfair predicts that £2 billion worth of mobile bets will be placed this year

Sports betting exchange Betfair has forecast that the value of bets placed by mobile phone users is set to double this year as the firm continues to push its mobile offerings.

In a presentation to delegates at the recent Mobile Marketing Live conference, Ben Carter, global head of online marketing at Betfair, revealed that the company has already taken nearly £2 billion in bets from mobile customers. In comparison, during the 2010-2011 financial year, mobile only accounted for £1 billion worth of bets as 168,000 people used the Betfair app during the period.

Mr Carter told audience members at the Business Design Centre in London that 275,000 people have placed a bet on the move already this year, with the platform accounting for 15 per cent of total revenue, reports the Mobile Marketing Live website.

Half of all UK Betfair customers have now placed a bet on the exchange via their mobile phone as awareness of the company’s mobile efforts continues to grow. This is largely due to Betfair and its rivals doing more to encourage customers to bet on the go following the publication of recent research which showed that gamblers that use both mobile and fixed channels spend more money than those who only use one channel. Betfair has developed multi-channel advertising campaigns in a bid to gain a larger share of the mobile market and was boosted by big spending around major sporting events.

The Euro 2012 football championships in Poland and Ukraine helped boost interest in betting, with ten per cent of new mobile customers signing up during the month-long tournament, which was won by Spain.  It has long been the case that such events have caused a spike in interest from consumers, with the Cheltenham Festival and the FIFA and cricket World Cups helping to boost mobile revenues by 88 per cent in the 2010-2011 financial year.

Betfair customers have a range of different ways in which to bet on the go, including the iPhone and iPad apps which are available on 14 different App Stores. Throughout the course of the Euro 2012 Championships, downloads of the betting exchange’s apps trebled as punters interest in betting soared throughout the summer showpiece event.

Speaking after the release of last year’s figures, Raj Vemulapalli, Betfair’s vice-president of mobile engineering, revealed that the firm is committed to improving its mobile offerings.

“Developing new betting methods and experiences for the increasing amount of our customers who wish to access Betfair through their mobile phones is a key priority of the business,” he said.

“The surge in global smartphone sales represents a significant opportunity for us, and we’re confident that our track-record of delivering cutting-edge technology for our customers will enable us to capitalise on this trend.”

As well as its iPhone and iPad apps, Betfair also has an HTML5 web app for non-Apple devices, as well as its Racing on Your Mobile app. Furthermore, Betfair offers an application programming interface (API) that allows third-party organisations to build mobile apps based on the Betfair Exchange, and runs a revenue-sharing scheme that offers five per cent of income to the developer.

Dynmark helps gaming companies engage customers through fully automated SMS communications; from welcome and activation to in-play bets and service messages. With proven experience integrating with gaming platforms such as Playtech, Dynmark has been providing SMS messaging and services to the gaming industry since 2006. Read more about Dynmark’s gaming experience here.

 

Sep 27 2012

Live sports boosting mobile video viewing

Summary: New report shows that 84 per cent of mobile video users have gone on to increase their mobile video consumption after watching an Olympic event on the move

The majority of UK mobile phone users who have watched a live sporting event on their phone subsequently increased the amount of videos they viewed on the move, a new study has revealed.

QuickPlay Media has published the results of a survey which revealed that more than half (52 per cent) of mobile video users watched at least one Olympic event on either a smartphone or tablet computer over the summer.

The poll of UK mobile subscribers aged between 18 and 44 also showed that, of those who have opted to view a major sporting event on a mobile device, 84 per cent have since gone on to increase their mobile video consumption after having a positive experience first time around.

In fact, a third of this group said that they are now watching significantly more mobile videos than they were before watching their first live sporting event.

Overall, the number of people who are watching video on a smartphone or tablet computer has risen by 12 per cent over the past 12 months to 63 per cent.

This growth has largely been driven by the proliferation of devices, in particular tablets, which are able to play video. This trend is poised to continue over the coming years, with market research firm IDC recently forecasting that 117.1 million tablets will be shipped this year, up from 68.7 million in 2011.

Wayne Purboo, chief executive of QuickPlay Media, claimed that live TV is becoming a “primary driver” of demand for multiscreen services.

“The 2012 Olympics shattered records for mobile video viewing, and this is driving longer term consumer demand across a plethora of mobile devices,” he said.

“To capitalise on this demand service providers are looking for cost effective solutions that enable them to rapidly scale multiscreen services while maintaining security and quality of the consumer viewing experience. As a result we are seeing more and more companies looking to managed services as a solution to scale at speed.”

Other findings from the report show that half of respondents selected live TV, which included live programmes, sports and events, as the type of mobile video content that they most frequently watched. Two fifths preferred to view video on demand services.

More than half (55 per cent) of mobile video users view mobile videos once a week or more, with 16 per cent of this group watching videos every day. Last year, just 12 per cent of regular viewers watched mobile videos once a day.

Despite being able to watch videos on the move, consumers still watch the majority of mobile video at home, with 37 per cent revealing it is their main location for viewing. A quarter said that they watch mobile video in between activities and a fifth do so while commuting.

Productivity across UK workplaces probably dipped during the Olympics as the number of consumers watching mobile video at work doubled to 18 per cent during the summer showpiece event, compared to an average of nine per cent in other weeks.