Good point, it might be easier to use Twilio, Plivo or Nexmo. However 7 US cents is ~109 Burundian Francs. I can't speak on Burundi SMS costs but as a comparative, in Kenya the local per SMS cost is KES1.00 or KES2.00 and pricing for Twilio and Plivo is USD0.02 and USD0.0154 respectively, which translates to ~KES2.05 and ~KES1.58... so I'm assuming Twilio, Plivo or Nexmo price close to the cost of an SMS sent from a local number.
In short, the prices are probably comparable to sending a normal SMS in each country, meaning it might be cheaper to just use an SMS provider. Though in either case you have a fixed cost (and maintenance) of an internet facing server to "talk" to that SMS provider, so it might just make sense to do everything in one place (i.e. you still need to build the application that manages communication and sends SMSs either way)
I'm curious, which sites did you scrape? Also by "so-so" do you mean that a simple majority of picks were winning? Modest winnings in DraftKings (or their competitors) could make for an interesting side-hustle or semi-passive income source.
In short, the prices are probably comparable to sending a normal SMS in each country, meaning it might be cheaper to just use an SMS provider. Though in either case you have a fixed cost (and maintenance) of an internet facing server to "talk" to that SMS provider, so it might just make sense to do everything in one place (i.e. you still need to build the application that manages communication and sends SMSs either way)