The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the moment, so you may imagine that there might be very little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it appears to be operating the other way around, with the atrocious market circumstances creating a bigger desire to play, to try and find a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For most of the locals subsisting on the tiny local money, there are 2 established types of gaming, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lottery where the probabilities of winning are surprisingly small, but then the winnings are also surprisingly large. It’s been said by economists who look at the subject that many do not buy a card with an actual expectation of winning. Zimbet is centered on either the national or the English football divisions and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, pamper the considerably rich of the nation and sightseers. Up till recently, there was a considerably big tourist industry, built on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic woes and connected crime have cut into this market.
Among Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has just the slots. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer gaming tables, slot machines and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the two of which offer video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing complexes in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has deflated by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and conflict that has come to pass, it isn’t well-known how well the vacationing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the in the years to come. How many of the casinos will carry through until conditions get better is simply not known.