The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you may imagine that there might be little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. Actually, it appears to be working the opposite way, with the awful economic circumstances creating a bigger ambition to bet, to attempt to find a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For almost all of the locals surviving on the abysmal nearby money, there are two common types of gambling, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a state lottery where the probabilities of hitting are unbelievably small, but then the prizes are also extremely big. It’s been said by financial experts who study the situation that most don’t purchase a ticket with the rational assumption of hitting. Zimbet is built on either the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other foot, pamper the extremely rich of the state and sightseers. Up till recently, there was a considerably substantial sightseeing business, founded on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated bloodshed 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 slot machines, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which have gaming tables, slots and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which has gaming machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a pools system), there is a total of 2 horse racing complexes in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has deflated by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has resulted, it is not well-known how well the sightseeing industry which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the in the years to come. How many of them will survive until things improve is basically unknown.