The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the current time, so you may think that there would be little desire for patronizing Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it appears to be functioning the other way around, with the desperate market conditions leading to a higher ambition to wager, to try and discover a fast win, a way from the crisis.
For almost all of the locals subsisting on the tiny local wages, there are two established forms of wagering, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with practically everywhere else in the world, there is a national lottery where the chances of succeeding are remarkably low, but then the prizes are also surprisingly big. It’s been said by economists who look at the situation that the majority don’t buy a card with an actual assumption of profiting. Zimbet is centered on either the national or the UK football leagues and involves predicting the results of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other foot, mollycoddle the exceedingly rich of the nation and tourists. Up till not long ago, there was a very large sightseeing industry, based on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The market anxiety and associated bloodshed have cut into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has only slots. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the two of which contain table games, one armed bandits and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which has video poker machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing complexes in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the economy has deflated by beyond forty percent in recent years and with the connected poverty and bloodshed that has come about, it isn’t known how well the sightseeing industry which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the near future. How many of them will carry on until things improve is simply unknown.
