The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the current time, so you could imagine that there would be very little appetite for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In reality, it seems to be working the other way around, with the desperate market circumstances creating a larger eagerness to play, to try and find a fast win, a way from the crisis.
For most of the locals surviving on the tiny local wages, there are two common types of gaming, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are surprisingly low, but then the jackpots are also remarkably big. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the concept that most do not purchase a ticket with the rational assumption of winning. Zimbet is built on one of the national or the English soccer divisions and involves determining the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the incredibly rich of the state and tourists. Until not long ago, there was a considerably big sightseeing industry, based on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and connected violence have carved into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree Casino, which has just the slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer gaming tables, slot machines and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the two of which offer video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s casinos and the aforestated talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a pools system), there is a total of two horse racing tracks in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the economy has contracted by beyond 40 percent in the past few years and with the associated poverty and conflict that has come to pass, it isn’t well-known how healthy the sightseeing business which funds Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will still be around till things improve is merely unknown.
