The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the moment, so you may think that there might be very little desire for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In reality, it seems to be working the opposite way around, with the desperate market circumstances creating a larger eagerness to gamble, to attempt to find a fast win, a way out of the problems.
For most of the people subsisting on the tiny local money, there are two common styles of betting, the national lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are extremely small, but then the winnings are also remarkably large. It’s been said by economists who study the situation that most don’t purchase a ticket with an actual belief of profiting. Zimbet is based on either the domestic or the English soccer leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other hand, pander to the exceedingly rich of the society and tourists. Up until recently, there was a incredibly large tourist industry, based on nature trips and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic woes and connected crime have cut 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 only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just slots. Mutare has the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer table games, slots and video poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which have gaming machines and tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the aforestated alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of 2 horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has diminished by more than forty percent in recent years and with the associated poverty and violence that has come about, it is not known how well the sightseeing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the in the years to come. How many of them will still be around until things improve is simply not known.