The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you may imagine that there might be little affinity for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. Actually, it seems to be working the opposite way, with the critical market circumstances leading to a greater desire to play, to try and discover a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For many of the citizens surviving on the tiny local earnings, there are two established styles of gambling, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else on the planet, there is a state lottery where the odds of profiting are remarkably small, but then the jackpots are also very high. It’s been said by economists who look at the subject that the lion’s share do not purchase a card with an actual assumption of hitting. Zimbet is founded on either the domestic or the British football divisions and involves determining the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pander to the extremely rich of the state and vacationers. Up till recently, there was a exceptionally big tourist business, based on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected conflict have cut into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are two 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 just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slot machines. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which contain table games, slot machines and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which has video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has deflated by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and violence that has cropped up, it isn’t well-known how well the sightseeing industry which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of them will carry on until conditions improve is merely not known.
