The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you may imagine that there would be little affinity for supporting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In reality, it seems to be functioning the opposite way around, with the atrocious market conditions creating a bigger ambition to play, to attempt to find a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For nearly all of the citizens living on the meager local wages, there are 2 popular forms of gaming, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else on the planet, there is a national lottery where the probabilities of profiting are unbelievably tiny, but then the prizes are also surprisingly big. It’s been said by financial experts who study the situation that many don’t purchase a ticket with a real belief of profiting. Zimbet is based on either the national or the UK football leagues and involves determining the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the extremely rich of the country and sightseers. Up till recently, there was a incredibly big sightseeing business, centered on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market woes and associated bloodshed have carved into this trade.
Among Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slot machines, and the Plumtree Casino, which has only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which contain gaming tables, slots and video machines, and Victoria Falls houses 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 casinos and the previously mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are also 2 horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the economy has shrunk by more than 40 percent in recent years and with the associated poverty and bloodshed that has cropped up, it is not understood how well the tourist business which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will carry on until conditions get better is merely not known.