The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you could envision that there would be little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. Actually, it appears to be functioning the other way around, with the crucial market conditions creating a bigger desire to gamble, to try and find a quick win, a way from the crisis.
For most of the citizens subsisting on the abysmal local wages, there are 2 established styles of wagering, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with practically everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are unbelievably low, but then the winnings are also unbelievably large. It’s been said by market analysts who study the subject that most do not purchase a card with a real belief of hitting. Zimbet is centered on either the domestic or the United Kingston football divisions and involves determining the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, cater to the astonishingly rich of the state and tourists. Up till recently, there was a very substantial sightseeing business, built on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated crime have carved into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s casinos, 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 Casino, which has just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only one armed bandits. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which contain table games, one armed bandits and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which have slot machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the previously alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of two horse racing tracks in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the economy has diminished by beyond 40% in recent years and with the connected deprivation and crime that has come to pass, it is not well-known how well the sightseeing industry which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will carry through till conditions get better is merely not known.