The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the moment, so you could think that there would be little appetite for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. In reality, it seems to be functioning the other way, with the awful economic circumstances creating a higher desire to wager, to try and locate a fast win, a way out of the crisis.
For nearly all of the people living on the abysmal local wages, there are two established forms of betting, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a national lottery where the odds of succeeding are extremely tiny, but then the winnings are also unbelievably large. It’s been said by economists who study the idea that most don’t buy a card with an actual assumption of profiting. Zimbet is founded on one of the national or the United Kingston football leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the incredibly rich of the nation and sightseers. Until a short while ago, there was a very large tourist industry, founded on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic woes and associated conflict have cut into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair 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, the two of which have gaming machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has deflated by more than 40 percent in recent years and with the connected poverty and conflict that has resulted, it isn’t known how well the sightseeing business which supports Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will survive until things get better is merely not known.
