The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the current time, so you could think that there would be very little affinity for supporting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In reality, it seems to be working the opposite way, with the awful market conditions leading to a greater ambition to wager, to try and locate a fast win, a way out of the difficulty.
For nearly all of the people living on the tiny local wages, there are two dominant forms of betting, the national lottery and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else in the world, there is a state lottery where the probabilities of profiting are surprisingly low, but then the prizes are also unbelievably high. It’s been said by market analysts who study the idea that many do not purchase a ticket with a real expectation of winning. Zimbet is built on one of the national or the English football divisions and involves determining the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, cater to the extremely rich of the country and tourists. Until a short time ago, there was a very big tourist business, based on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The market woes and associated crime have carved into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slot machines, and the Plumtree Casino, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slot machines. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which contain gaming tables, slots and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which offer video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforementioned mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are also 2 horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has contracted by beyond forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and violence that has cropped up, it isn’t known how well the sightseeing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will carry on till things get better is basically not known.