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The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the moment, so you might imagine that there might be very little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. Actually, it seems to be functioning the other way around, with the desperate market circumstances creating a bigger ambition to wager, to attempt to discover a fast win, a way from the crisis.
For many of the locals subsisting on the abysmal nearby wages, there are two common styles of gaming, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else in the world, there is a national lottery where the odds of profiting are remarkably small, but then the winnings are also surprisingly high. It’s been said by financial experts who understand the situation that the majority don’t purchase a ticket with a real belief of hitting. Zimbet is founded on either the local or the UK soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pander to the very rich of the society and tourists. Until not long ago, there was a considerably large tourist industry, built on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and connected violence have cut into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and slot machines, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has only slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which have gaming tables, one armed bandits and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which have video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforestated talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing complexes in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has shrunk by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and violence that has resulted, it isn’t known how healthy the sightseeing business which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of them will carry on till conditions improve is simply not known.
