The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you may think that there might be little appetite for supporting Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it appears to be working the opposite way around, with the atrocious market circumstances creating a larger ambition to gamble, to attempt to find a quick win, a way out of the problems.
For many of the citizens subsisting on the tiny nearby wages, there are two common types of betting, the national lottery and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lottery where the odds of profiting are remarkably small, but then the jackpots are also surprisingly large. It’s been said by economists who study the concept that the majority don’t purchase a card with the rational assumption of profiting. Zimbet is centered on one of the national or the UK soccer divisions and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the very rich of the state and tourists. Until a short while ago, there was a exceptionally substantial sightseeing business, based on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected bloodshed have cut into this market.
Among Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling hall, 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, the two of which have table games, one armed bandits and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which has video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated talked about 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 contracted by more than 40% in recent years and with the connected poverty and conflict that has come to pass, it isn’t understood how healthy the sightseeing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will survive till things get better is merely not known.