The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you may imagine that there would be very little affinity for supporting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it seems to be working the other way around, with the awful economic conditions creating a higher ambition to wager, to try and discover a fast win, a way from the problems.
For many of the locals subsisting on the meager local money, there are 2 dominant types of wagering, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a state lotto where the probabilities of profiting are surprisingly tiny, but then the jackpots are also surprisingly high. It’s been said by market analysts who look at the concept that most do not purchase a ticket with an actual assumption of profiting. Zimbet is based on one of the local or the British soccer leagues and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the very rich of the state and sightseers. Up until recently, there was a considerably big tourist business, founded on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic anxiety and connected bloodshed have carved into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree Casino, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which offer table games, slot machines 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 video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforementioned mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of 2 horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has shrunk by more than forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has arisen, it isn’t known how healthy the tourist business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the near future. How many of them will survive until things improve is simply not known.