Fincore: The Art of the Clean Upgrade
For Dominic Le Garsmeur the way the industry talks about legacy technology often misses the point
Fincore’s Chief Product Officer believes there are too many instances where modernisation is perceived as a matter of replacement rather than understanding… which is where projects begin to fail.
At Fincore, legacy refresh is never about dropping shiny new technology into an already complex environment. Instead, Dominic explains, it begins with listening. The company’s products are built in a modular, composable way, but the real value lies in how they are applied. “What we’re doing is going into existing businesses with complicated ecosystems and helping our customers solve problems.”
That might involve refreshing a single component, such as a bonus platform, or undertaking a full rebuild from the ground up. What matters is how that change is delivered. Too often, Dominic argues, suppliers build new products and “just drop them on the edge of someone’s ecosystem.”
For operators already managing established workflows and stretched teams, another disconnected tool only adds friction. “What they don’t need is another shiny toy that isn’t going to solve the problems of their existing platform.”
Fincore’s approach is shaped by experience. With more than 20 years of domain and technology knowledge across its engineering team, the company prioritises fit and continuity over novelty. “The first thing we do is listen and understand how this is going to work with the existing platforms our customers have got.” Replacing legacy, in Dominic’s view, means understanding how systems are actually used – not just how they appear on paper.
The Pools
That philosophy was put to the test in Fincore’s work with The Pools, one of the UK’s oldest and most recognisable gaming brands. Dominic describes the scale of the project as the clearest example of what a clean upgrade really looks like. “We’ve just replaced The Pools’ entire 40-year-old pools engine.”
The Pools’ environment was anything but simple. Alongside digital channels, it included long-established trading operations, in-house results services, and even customers still submitting paper entries on a Saturday. At the same time, legacy technology was beginning to hold the business back – slowing innovation, complicating integrations, and limiting control over future development – while trust and regulatory compliance remained non-negotiable.
Delivering a clean upgrade in that context required significant groundwork. “We had to do a lot of work early on understanding the boundaries of the platform,” Dominic explains. Only then could Fincore build a completely new, modern core using technology choices that The Pools could realistically maintain themselves.
Working in close partnership, the result was a future-ready Pools Platform built clean from the core. The new architecture brought all of the The Pools games into a single modular system, and paved the way for expansion with new business to business relationships and reselling opportunities.
“Moving to a Kubernetes-based development didn’t just modernise the core,” Dominic notes.
“It’s reduced operating costs compared to the previous standalone environment. That’s how modernisation should work – stronger architecture and a healthier cost base.” For Dominic, ownership was critical. Modernisation, he stresses, shouldn’t replace dependency on legacy systems with dependency on third parties.
The relaunch is scheduled to go live as planned and without disruption – a point Dominic sees as central to the definition of success. “The Pools was the epitome of a clean upgrade,” he underlines. “An entire refresh dropped into a complicated environment in a very sympathetic way.”
The breadth of Fincore’s engineering capability – more than 250 engineers based in Belgrade – made it possible to work across a wide range of technologies while respecting the brand’s heritage and player trust.
Avoiding Stack Bloat
That emphasis on sympathy and simplicity extends to Dominic’s broader view of how suppliers should think about product expansion. As portfolios grow and new tools emerge, he questions whether more functionality automatically delivers better outcomes. “I think they want tools that work better and make their daily jobs better.”
Too often, Dominic observes, senior leadership teams attend industry events, discover a new AI-powered platform, and decide to add it to the stack without considering the operational impact. “You’re dropping it on the poor guys who’ve already got 12-hour days.”
The question that rarely gets asked, he argues, is whether that extra complexity improves the player experience. “No, because it’s too much to do and too hard to use.”
This tension is particularly visible in the world of bonuses, where Fincore’s CPO sees a clear shift underway. “We’re seeing a move back towards simple-to-understand, easy-to-consume bonusing,” he says, even as Fincore continues to support more complex structures when they genuinely add value. Simplicity, he stresses, benefits both operators and players.
AI Accelerator
As a product guy, Dominic finds the rise of AI energising rather than intimidating. “I enjoy it more,” he admits. For him, AI is a tool – powerful when applied thoughtfully, but never a substitute for human judgement.
In day-to-day product work at Fincore, AI-enabled tools have accelerated collaboration and experimentation. Platforms like Miro, combined with newer AI capabilities, allow teams to prototype and share ideas far more quickly.
“The ability to prototype quickly and to share ideas isn’t replacing our input,” Dominic explains. Instead, it acts as an accelerator. He likens AI to “a really on-the-ball, keen intern” – fast and helpful, but not always right. “You have to be there,”
Beyond internal workflows, Dominic sees the greatest value in using AI within production systems to remove friction and improve player outcomes – from recommending more relevant bonuses to resolving customer service queries faster. That’s where Fincore is focusing its efforts, embedding intelligence directly into the platform rather than layering it on top.
At the same time, there is caution about overstating novelty. “We’ve had expert systems and machine learning platforms for a long time,” Dominic notes. While today’s tools represent a significant step forward, they shouldn’t be treated as something to fear. Instead, he frames AI as a way to remove unnecessary manual effort.
“Do you want 100 customer service people looking up every player’s profile,” he asks, “when the machine can do it for you?”
For Dominic, that question captures the real opportunity facing the industry. Not replacing people or adding complexity, but using technology intelligently to simplify systems, empower teams, and improve player experiences without breaking what already works.
