The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the moment, so you may think that there would be very little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s casinos. Actually, it appears to be functioning the other way around, with the atrocious market circumstances creating a bigger ambition to bet, to try and find a fast win, a way out of the crisis.
For many of the locals living on the abysmal local wages, there are two popular types of gaming, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the probabilities of succeeding are remarkably tiny, but then the prizes are also surprisingly big. It’s been said by financial experts who look at the situation that the lion’s share don’t buy a ticket with a real expectation of winning. Zimbet is founded on one of the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other hand, pander to the incredibly rich of the society and vacationers. Up until recently, there was a considerably large tourist industry, founded on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and connected conflict have cut into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only one armed bandits. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer gaming tables, slot machines and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which offer slot machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforestated alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has diminished by more than forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has arisen, it is not understood how well the tourist business which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the in the years to come. How many of the casinos will still be around until conditions improve is simply unknown.
