The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you may imagine that there might be very little appetite for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. Actually, it seems to be operating the opposite way around, with the desperate economic conditions creating a greater ambition to wager, to try and discover a quick win, a way from the difficulty.
For almost all of the locals living on the abysmal local wages, there are two dominant styles of gaming, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are remarkably tiny, but then the prizes are also extremely big. It’s been said by financial experts who study the situation that most do not purchase a ticket with a real assumption of profiting. Zimbet is centered on one of the domestic or the English football divisions and involves predicting the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the very rich of the country and travelers. Up until a short time ago, there was a extremely substantial tourist business, based on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market anxiety and associated conflict have cut into this market.
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 Casino, which has only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slot machines. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which have table games, slots and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which have gaming machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s casinos and the previously talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has shrunk by beyond forty percent in the past few years and with the connected poverty and violence that has come about, it is not well-known how healthy the sightseeing industry which supports Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will carry on till things improve is merely unknown.
