The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the current time, so you might think that there would be little desire for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In reality, it seems to be working the other way, with the desperate market conditions creating a bigger eagerness to play, to try and locate a fast win, a way out of the situation.
For many of the people surviving on the meager local money, there are two dominant forms of gambling, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with most everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lotto where the probabilities of winning are extremely tiny, but then the winnings are also remarkably high. It’s been said by financial experts who study the subject that the lion’s share don’t buy a card with the rational expectation of profiting. Zimbet is centered on one of the national or the United Kingston soccer leagues and involves determining the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the extremely rich of the state and sightseers. Up until not long ago, there was a incredibly large sightseeing business, centered on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected crime have cut into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has just the slot machine games. 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 have gaming tables, slot machines and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which have video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing complexes in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the economy has shrunk by more than forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and bloodshed that has resulted, it isn’t understood how healthy the sightseeing business which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the in the years to come. How many of the casinos will survive till conditions improve is basically unknown.
