The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you may envision that there might be little appetite for visiting Zimbabwe’s casinos. Actually, it appears to be functioning the other way around, with the atrocious economic conditions leading to a larger eagerness to wager, to attempt to locate a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For almost all of the people surviving on the abysmal local wages, there are two dominant types of wagering, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else on the planet, there is a state lotto where the probabilities of winning are surprisingly tiny, but then the prizes are also surprisingly big. It’s been said by economists who study the situation that many do not purchase a ticket with a real belief of profiting. Zimbet is centered on one of the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the astonishingly rich of the society and sightseers. Until a short time ago, there was a very large sightseeing industry, built on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic anxiety and associated crime have cut into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has only slot machines. 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 two of which have table games, slot machines and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which offer gaming machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there are also two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the economy has shrunk by more than 40 percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and violence that has come about, it isn’t understood how healthy the sightseeing business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the near future. How many of them will carry on till things improve is merely unknown.