The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the moment, so you could think that there might be little affinity for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. In fact, it appears to be working the opposite way around, with the critical market conditions leading to a bigger desire to wager, to attempt to find a quick win, a way out of the problems.
For most of the people surviving on the abysmal local wages, there are two common styles of gambling, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else on the globe, there is a state lottery where the odds of hitting are unbelievably small, but then the jackpots are also surprisingly high. It’s been said by financial experts who understand the situation that many don’t purchase a ticket with the rational assumption of winning. Zimbet is founded on either the national or the English football leagues and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, pamper the very rich of the state and sightseers. Up until a short while ago, there was a very big tourist business, founded on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and associated crime have carved into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which contain 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, the two of which has slot machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the previously mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is very 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 city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has contracted by more than 40 percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and crime that has resulted, it isn’t understood how well the vacationing business which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will be alive till things get better is simply unknown.