The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you could envision that there would be very little affinity for going to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it appears to be functioning the other way, with the desperate market conditions leading to a greater desire to play, to attempt to find a fast win, a way out of the difficulty.
For almost all of the people subsisting on the meager nearby wages, there are two dominant styles of betting, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are surprisingly small, but then the winnings are also unbelievably high. It’s been said by market analysts who study the situation that many do not purchase a ticket with the rational assumption of hitting. Zimbet is founded on one of the national or the UK football divisions and involves determining the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, cater to the exceedingly rich of the nation and sightseers. Until not long ago, there was a very large tourist industry, founded on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market anxiety and associated conflict 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 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 only one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which have gaming tables, slot machines and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the two of which has slot machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the previously alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has shrunk by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and crime that has cropped up, it isn’t known how well the sightseeing business which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the near future. How many of them will carry through till things get better is basically unknown.
