The Pools, the historic UK betting group formerly known as The Football Pools, has undergone a significant technological overhaul as part of its modernisation
The Pools, the historic UK betting group formerly known as The Football Pools, has undergone a significant technological overhaul as part of its modernisation efforts. This extensive revamp included migrating its systems and vast amounts of player data to the cloud and integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its operations, positioning the company for future growth and potential geographical expansion.
The Football Pools was first launched in 1923, initially distributing betting coupons outside football grounds. Players would bet on the outcomes of fixtures, with games scored based on draws and wins, and gamblers entered into prize draws. However, after years of reliance on legacy technology, the operator found that processing player data had become increasingly clunky and inefficient. In an effort to modernise and improve efficiencies, the company made the decision not just to rebrand the product but to completely overhaul its digital systems. Transitioning onto new platforms and migrating all player data onto the cloud were recognised as complex and potentially risky tasks, threatening negative outcomes and some amount of downtime, but they were deemed necessary to revitalise the Pools’ product and align it with its new brand and personality.
A key step in this overhaul was migrating onto GiG’s sportsbook and iGaming platform in January of last year (relative to May 16, 2025), transitioning off its previous provider, FSB Technology. GiG’s suite has enabled The Pools to adopt modern features like bet-builder capabilities and dynamic odds. The view from CTO Phillip Donegan, as reported by iGaming Times, is that the GiG platform provides a way of modernising the classic pools games and enabling them to be played digitally, which he sees as “absolutely key for the company going forward.” A significant feature of this move was also to provide scalability, supporting the operator’s goal to expand its European presence.
One of the more strenuous tasks during the multi-month overhaul was consolidating decades of duplicated historic player data into one system. As part of this, the digital team spent a number of months migrating this data onto Microsoft’s Azure public cloud system. The view from Donegan, as reported by iGaming Times, is that the point of the migration to Azure was to gain better insights into Pools players and better utilise their data. The move aimed for systems that are “cheaper to run, but also higher performance,” scaling automatically as needed. Donegan explained, as reported by iGaming Times, that the main challenge was that data was spread across numerous disparate systems and technologies, including different database types like SQL Server, MySQL, Postgres, and Oracle. This required a significant deduplication exercise to identify and remove duplicate data that had built up over the years. Donegan noted, as reported by iGaming Times, that while they “knew of all of our data,” the key challenge was connecting it all back together and drawing potentially multiple accounts from different systems into a single account per player, which was “the key to it.” He also stated that this deduplication process had to be carried out before data migration to the new GiG platform, as it does not allow for multiple accounts to exist simultaneously. Donegan conveyed, as reported by iGaming Times, that compared to their previous state, they now have “proper insights” into what players are doing, can target them more effectively, and player engagement is much easier to monitor due to real-time capabilities. The Pools’ subscription engine, described as a massive piece of software with 18 services, is also being moved to the cloud onto Azure, part of the overall effort to de-commission existing on-premise technology.
As part of this major digitisation strategy, some systems were ultimately decommissioned due to being outdated and the significant cost required to save them. As an example, games powered by a legacy system called Meridian, written in an old version of VB (Visual Basic), were deemed too costly to save and were ultimately decommissioned. Donegan stated, as reported by iGaming Times, that some systems have been rebuilt from the ground up, such as the operator’s marketing system, which has been redesigned using modern technology. While its previous marketing system was written in Java, the new system is being built using the .NET Microsoft-developed software framework. Donegan noted, as reported by iGaming Times, that they are “trying to move as much as possible onto .NET rather than spread across .NET, Ruby, VB and Java,” as they were previously. The Pools also has plans to reinstate some classic games, such as Premier Six and Premier Ten games, in an updated format. A single payment provider is also a goal as part of the modernisation and restoration of some removed games. The completion of the new marketing engine is highlighted as a prerequisite for putting some of these services back in place.
As part of its modernisation efforts, The Pools is also turning to AI technology to streamline both backend and customer-facing processes. This year (2025), it began working with Intercom, an AI agent supplier, to provide customer-facing customer service chatbots. While currently all player interactions go through human-operated agents, this new system is expected to enable the company to reduce that requirement and allow customers to get quick responses to simple queries. The Pools has also loaded all of its legal documents onto a Microsoft SharePoint site which has an AI co-pilot agent running that can scan hundreds of documents instantly. This allows staff to send the agent queries, such as how much the company is spending on certain services in a month. Donegan stated, as reported by iGaming Times, that this capability “just spits [information] back out to you in real time, rather than you having to trawl through hundreds, if not thousands, of documents.” He noted that this can save potentially hundreds of hours across a year, and its cost is consumption-based.
Looking ahead, the view from Donegan, as reported by iGaming Times, is that there is an “element of discovery” to the digitisation effort, and the company will be reacting to new technical challenges as it continues to evolve. A core concern for the technical transition is how players will respond to the new platform and processes, especially those who have been long-time Pools users. Donegan noted, as reported by iGaming Times, that how the player base responds to the new platform will be key and may necessitate adding new features to the product roadmap, stating that reactivity is expected to be a key challenge over the next 12 months. While the rebrand and digital launch are predominantly focused on the UK, CEO James Arnold is reportedly eyeing further geographical expansion. The recent tech and product overhaul is expected to support this goal and ensure The Pools can compete with global peers. Arnold stated, as reported by iGaming Times, that the “small stake, big win nature of the games is perfect for many rapidly expanding markets, particularly across Africa, Latin and South America, where we are actively in discussion with several third parties about future growth opportunities.”
In conclusion, The Pools’ extensive technological overhaul, encompassing cloud migration, platform transition, data consolidation, legacy system decommissioning, tech stack updates, and AI integration, represents a crucial step in modernising the historic brand and preparing it for future growth and geographical expansion. The company is focused on leveraging its new digital capabilities while navigating the challenges of player adaptation and ongoing technical evolution to compete effectively in the evolving betting market.
