And how many in supermarkets?

Jared Savage at NZ Herald reports:

Nearly 100 children were found wandering by themselves in SkyCity last year, show new statistics which anti-gambling advocates say prove problem gambling is a growing issue.

In most cases, the adults responsible for the children were found in the main gaming floor on pokie machines or at a table game.

Note we don’t get told the proportion between the two. It might be 4 at pokie machines and 96 at table games. Does the PGF who released the data have the breakdown?

Figures released by the Department of Internal Affairs under the Official Information Act show there were 64 incidents of “unattended children” last year, involving 96 children. In 2009, just 19 such incidents were recorded.

64 incidents is around one a week. Sounds reasonably high but what I want to know is comparison rates. How many unattended children are found each week in malls and/or supermarkets and what is that as a proportion of overall customers?

Because casinos are probably the only entities required to report on this data, it is all too easy to jump to conclusions.