The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you could envision that there would be very little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. Actually, it seems to be functioning the other way, with the desperate economic conditions leading to a greater ambition to gamble, to try and find a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For almost all of the people living on the abysmal local wages, there are two dominant types of gambling, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else in the world, there is a state lotto where the odds of hitting are surprisingly small, but then the prizes are also very large. It’s been said by financial experts who study the subject that most don’t buy a ticket with the rational expectation of hitting. Zimbet is built on either the national or the British football leagues and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other hand, cater to the incredibly rich of the state and sightseers. Up till recently, there was a considerably large vacationing business, founded on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected crime have carved into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree Casino, which has just the slot machine games. 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, the pair of which contain table games, slots and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which offer slot machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforementioned alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a pools system), there are also two horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the economy has deflated by beyond 40 percent in recent years and with the connected deprivation and conflict that has come to pass, it isn’t known how healthy the vacationing business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the in the years to come. How many of them will still be around until conditions improve is simply unknown.
