The act of living in Zimbabwe is something of a risk at the moment, so you could think that there would be little desire for visiting Zimbabwe’s casinos. Actually, it appears to be functioning the other way, with the atrocious market circumstances creating a greater desire to play, to attempt to find a quick win, a way from the difficulty.
For nearly all of the locals subsisting on the abysmal nearby earnings, there are two common styles of gambling, the state lotto and Zimbet. Just as with almost everywhere else on the globe, there is a state lotto where the probabilities of hitting are remarkably tiny, but then the winnings are also remarkably large. It’s been said by economists who understand the subject that most don’t buy a ticket with the rational expectation of profiting. Zimbet is built on either the domestic or the English soccer divisions and involves determining the outcomes of future matches.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other hand, cater to the incredibly rich of the nation and travelers. Until a short time ago, there was a very large sightseeing industry, based on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The market woes and associated bloodshed have cut into this trade.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and one armed bandits, and the Plumtree Casino, which has just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has just one armed bandits. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which contain table games, slots and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, each of which offer video poker machines and table games.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above alluded to lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a pools system), there is a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Seeing as that the market has shrunk by more than 40 percent in the past few years and with the connected poverty and bloodshed that has come to pass, it is not well-known how well the vacationing business which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s gambling dens will do in the next few years. How many of them will carry through till conditions get better is basically unknown.