The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you may think that there would be little affinity for patronizing Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In fact, it appears to be functioning the opposite way around, with the crucial market circumstances leading to a greater ambition to wager, to try and discover a quick win, a way from the crisis.
For most of the people subsisting on the tiny nearby earnings, there are two common forms of betting, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else on the planet, there is a national lottery where the probabilities of succeeding are unbelievably small, but then the prizes are also very big. It’s been said by economists who study the situation that many don’t purchase a ticket with a real expectation of winning. Zimbet is built on one of the domestic or the English football leagues and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other foot, pander to the considerably rich of the society and tourists. Until recently, there was a incredibly large sightseeing business, founded on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic woes and associated violence have carved into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, 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 gambling hall, which has just the slot machine games. 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, both of which have gaming tables, slots and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which have 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 are a total of two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the economy has deflated by more than 40% in recent years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has resulted, it is not understood how healthy the sightseeing industry which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will be alive until things get better is merely unknown.
