The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the current time, so you could imagine that there would be little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In fact, it appears to be working the other way around, with the critical market circumstances creating a greater eagerness to wager, to try and find a quick win, a way out of the problems.
For nearly all of the locals surviving on the meager nearby wages, there are two common types of betting, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a state lottery where the probabilities of winning are surprisingly low, but then the jackpots are also remarkably large. It’s been said by market analysts who study the idea that the lion’s share don’t buy a ticket with a real expectation of hitting. Zimbet is founded on either the domestic or the English football divisions and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other hand, mollycoddle the astonishingly rich of the society and vacationers. Until a short time ago, there was a considerably large sightseeing industry, centered on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected crime 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 den, 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, slot machines and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer gaming machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforementioned alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of two horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the economy has shrunk by more than 40% in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and violence that has cropped up, it isn’t well-known how well the sightseeing industry which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will carry through till things improve is basically unknown.