The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the current time, so you may envision that there would be very little desire for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. In fact, it seems to be operating the opposite way, with the atrocious market circumstances leading to a bigger eagerness to wager, to try and find a quick win, a way out of the crisis.
For nearly all of the citizens surviving on the tiny local money, there are two dominant forms of wagering, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with most everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the odds of succeeding are surprisingly small, but then the prizes are also surprisingly high. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the idea that the majority do not buy a card with a real expectation of hitting. Zimbet is based on one of the national or the UK soccer divisions and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, pander to the astonishingly rich of the society and sightseers. Up till not long ago, there was a extremely large vacationing business, centered on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and connected violence have cut into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are two 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 just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slot machines. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair 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 two of which have gaming machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s casinos and the above mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a pools system), there are a total of two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has contracted by more than 40 percent in recent years and with the associated poverty and violence that has arisen, it is not known how healthy the tourist business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the next few years. How many of them will still be around until conditions improve is merely unknown.