The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the current time, so you may think that there would be very little desire for supporting Zimbabwe’s casinos. In reality, it appears to be working the other way around, with the awful market conditions creating a larger desire to gamble, to try and discover a quick win, a way out of the crisis.
For nearly all of the locals subsisting on the abysmal nearby earnings, there are 2 dominant forms of gambling, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the probabilities of succeeding are surprisingly tiny, but then the prizes are also extremely high. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the concept that the majority do not buy a card with the rational belief of winning. Zimbet is based on either the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the extremely rich of the country and tourists. Up till recently, there was a very large tourist industry, centered on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The market collapse and associated bloodshed have carved into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has five gaming tables and slot machines, and the Plumtree Casino, which has only slots. 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, the pair of which have gaming tables, slot machines and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which has video poker machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the above alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is quite like a pools system), there are also two horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has contracted by beyond forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and violence that has cropped up, it isn’t understood how healthy the sightseeing business which funds Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of them will be alive till things improve is basically unknown.