The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the current time, so you might imagine that there would be little desire for visiting Zimbabwe’s casinos. In fact, it seems to be functioning the opposite way around, with the awful market conditions creating a bigger desire to wager, to try and discover a quick win, a way from the difficulty.
For most of the locals living on the meager local wages, there are 2 established types of betting, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else on the planet, there is a state lotto where the probabilities of winning are unbelievably low, but then the jackpots are also very large. It’s been said by financial experts who understand the situation that most do not buy a card with a real expectation of profiting. Zimbet is founded on one of the local or the UK soccer leagues and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the very rich of the state and sightseers. Up till a short time ago, there was a very large tourist business, centered on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and associated bloodshed have cut into this market.
Among Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree gambling den, which has just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which have gaming tables, slots and video machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the two of which offer slot machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are also 2 horse racing tracks in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has deflated by beyond forty percent in recent years and with the connected deprivation and violence that has come to pass, it isn’t known how healthy the vacationing business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the in the years to come. How many of the casinos will survive until conditions get better is simply not known.