The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you might imagine that there would be little affinity for patronizing Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. Actually, it seems to be operating the other way, with the desperate economic conditions leading to a bigger desire to wager, to try and locate a fast win, a way out of the problems.
For the majority of the locals subsisting on the tiny local money, there are two popular types of wagering, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with most everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lottery where the odds of succeeding are unbelievably tiny, but then the jackpots are also remarkably large. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the concept that many don’t buy a card with the rational expectation of hitting. Zimbet is centered on either the domestic or the UK football divisions and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, pamper the considerably rich of the nation and tourists. Up until recently, there was a extremely large vacationing business, based on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated bloodshed have carved into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, 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 Casino, which has only 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 two of which contain gaming tables, slot machines and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which offer video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the previously talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the economy has deflated by beyond forty percent in the past few years and with the connected deprivation and crime that has resulted, it is not understood how well the vacationing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will survive until conditions get better is basically unknown.