The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you might think that there might be very little appetite for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. Actually, it seems to be functioning the other way around, with the critical economic conditions creating a bigger eagerness to bet, to try and discover a quick win, a way out of the problems.
For many of the locals subsisting on the meager nearby wages, there are 2 dominant forms of gaming, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lottery where the probabilities of profiting are extremely small, but then the winnings are also remarkably high. It’s been said by market analysts who study the concept that many don’t purchase a card with a real belief of winning. Zimbet is centered on either the domestic or the UK football leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other foot, mollycoddle the very rich of the society and sightseers. Up until not long ago, there was a extremely large tourist business, built on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and connected bloodshed have cut into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 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 only one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the two of which offer table games, slots and electronic 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 tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the previously talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a pools system), there are a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the economy has contracted by more than 40% in recent years and with the associated deprivation and crime that has cropped up, it isn’t understood how healthy the tourist industry which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will be alive until conditions improve is simply unknown.