The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the current time, so you could think that there might be little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In reality, it appears to be functioning the other way, with the awful economic conditions leading to a greater ambition to wager, to attempt to discover a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.
For almost all of the people living on the abysmal local wages, there are two popular styles of gambling, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else on the planet, there is a national lotto where the odds of winning are extremely tiny, but then the winnings are also unbelievably high. It’s been said by financial experts who understand the concept that most don’t buy a card with an actual assumption of winning. Zimbet is based on either the national or the British soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other shoe, pander to the extremely rich of the society and travelers. Up until a short while ago, there was a considerably substantial sightseeing business, centered on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The market woes and associated conflict have cut 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 slots, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slot machines. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both 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, the pair of which have gaming machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s casinos and the above mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the economy has deflated by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has cropped up, it is not known how well the tourist business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of the casinos will carry through until conditions improve is simply unknown.
