The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you might think that there would be very little affinity for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In fact, it appears to be working the other way, with the awful market circumstances leading to a bigger eagerness to gamble, to attempt to discover a fast win, a way out of the crisis.
For most of the people living on the abysmal local wages, there are two established types of wagering, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a state lottery where the odds of succeeding are remarkably small, but then the prizes are also surprisingly large. It’s been said by financial experts who understand the situation that the lion’s share do not buy a ticket with an actual assumption of profiting. Zimbet is based on one of the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other foot, cater to the extremely rich of the society and travelers. Until a short while ago, there was a considerably big vacationing business, based on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and connected violence 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 Casino, which has just the slots. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer table games, 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 have video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforementioned alluded to 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 second city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has diminished by beyond 40% in the past few years and with the associated poverty and crime that has cropped up, it is not understood how well the sightseeing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the in the years to come. How many of them will still be around till things get better is basically unknown.
