Opening hours are the most useful thing on a betting shop listing and the easiest thing to get wrong. Shops change their hours for the racing calendar, staffing and local licensing, and a directory that copies old information will send people to locked doors. This page explains exactly where our data comes from, what the labels on a shop page mean, and what we do when we are not sure.
Where the data comes from
Every shop on BookieFinder was collected from the bookmaker’s own published shop locator. These are the public pages each company maintains so that customers can find its shops. For each shop we record:
- the shop name, address and postcode as the bookmaker publishes them;
- latitude and longitude;
- the telephone number, where one is published;
- opening and closing times for each day of the week, including any day the shop is closed;
- facilities the bookmaker lists, such as self-service betting terminals;
- the exact page or record the information came from;
- the date and time we collected it.
We collect at a slow, polite rate that respects each site’s published rules for automated access. We do not use other directories as a source. If another site lists a shop that the bookmaker’s own locator does not, we treat that as a lead to check, not as a fact to publish.
What the labels on a shop page mean
Each shop page carries one of the following statuses.
Source data, collected on a date. The details were taken from the bookmaker’s locator on the date shown and have not yet been checked by a person. This is the most common state and it is reliable for most purposes, because the bookmaker has every reason to publish correct hours for its own shops. It is still second-hand, so we label it as such.
Verified on a date. A person has confirmed the details, usually by telephoning the shop or by comparing two independent records. The page shows who carried out the check and when the next check is due.
Hours unavailable. The bookmaker does not publish opening hours for this shop, or the published hours were incomplete or contradictory. We would rather show nothing than show a guess. A shop marked “Hours unavailable” is not the same as a shop marked “Closed”; the first means we do not know, the second means the bookmaker states the shop does not open that day.
Under review. Something about the record needs a human decision. Common reasons are two shops sharing one postcode, a shop that has disappeared from the bookmaker’s locator, or a report from a visitor. Shops under review stay visible with their last known details until the review is complete.
What we will not do
- We will not invent hours. If a shop has no published hours, we do not borrow them from a nearby branch or from a “typical” schedule.
- We will not present another directory’s data as official.
- We will not replace a person’s verified check with automatically collected data. If a re-collection disagrees with a verified record, the record is flagged for a second look instead.
- We will not delete a shop simply because it vanished from one source. Shops close, but locators also have gaps. A missing shop is marked for verification, and only removed once a person confirms it has closed.
How often data is refreshed
Automatically collected details carry a re-check date roughly 90 days after collection. Shops that pass that date are shown with an older collection date rather than hidden. We re-collect from the bookmakers’ locators on a rolling basis and compare each new collection against the previous one, so that changed hours, new shops and missing shops are picked up and queued for review.
Known limitations
- We currently list William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral. Betfred, Paddy Power and BoyleSports will follow once their shop data has been collected and checked. Until then, a town page shows only the brands we hold data for.
- Bank holiday and special event hours are not yet included. Bookmakers rarely publish them in a form we can collect reliably. Check with the shop before travelling on a bank holiday.
- Independent bookmakers are not yet listed.
- A small number of source records contain errors, such as a street number that has been garbled. Where we can see the error we remove the doubtful part rather than correct it by guesswork, so a few addresses show the street without a number.
Reporting an error
If a shop’s details are wrong, use the “Report a problem” link on the shop page or email admin@bookieFinder [dot] com. Tell us the shop, what is wrong, and how you know. Reports are read by a person. If we can confirm the change, the shop page is updated and marked as verified with the date. If we cannot, the shop is marked under review so that other visitors can see the details are in doubt.
Page last reviewed: 30th  September 2026.