More Tools or Less Friction? Fix the Core First
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. Te 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."
Tat 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. “Te 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.
Tat philosophy was put to the test in Fincore’s work with Te Pools, one of the UK’s oldest and most recognisable gaming brands. Dominic
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describes the scale of the project as the clearest example of what a clean upgrade really looks like. “We’ve just replaced Te Pools’ entire 40-year-old pools engine.”
Te 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 Te Pools could realistically maintain themselves.
Working in close partnership, the result was a future-ready Pools Platform built clean from the core. Te new architecture brought all of the Te 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. Tat’s how modernisation should work – stronger architecture and a healthier cost base.” For Dominic, ownership was
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