The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you could think that there might be very little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In fact, it appears to be operating the other way, with the awful economic circumstances leading to a greater ambition to bet, to attempt to locate a quick win, a way out of the situation.
For nearly all of the locals subsisting on the tiny local wages, there are 2 popular styles of betting, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are unbelievably low, but then the prizes are also surprisingly high. It’s been said by financial experts who look at the situation that the majority don’t buy a ticket with the rational expectation of profiting. Zimbet is centered on one of the domestic or the United Kingston soccer divisions and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other foot, pander to the astonishingly rich of the society and vacationers. Until recently, there was a considerably large vacationing industry, founded on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated crime have cut into this market.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has just the slot machines. 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, both of which have table games, one armed bandits and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which has gaming machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the previously talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of two horse racing complexes in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the economy has contracted by beyond 40 percent in recent years and with the associated poverty and bloodshed that has come about, it is not understood how well the sightseeing business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the near future. How many of them will still be around until conditions get better is merely not known.