The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you could think that there would be little appetite for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. In reality, it appears to be operating the opposite way, with the critical economic conditions leading to a larger desire to gamble, to attempt to find a fast win, a way out of the situation.
For almost all of the citizens subsisting on the meager local wages, there are 2 popular styles of betting, the state lottery and Zimbet. As with almost everywhere else in the world, there is a national lotto where the odds of profiting are unbelievably low, but then the winnings are also unbelievably high. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the subject that the lion’s share do not purchase a ticket with the rational expectation of profiting. Zimbet is based on either the local or the United Kingston football leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, pamper the incredibly rich of the nation and vacationers. Until recently, there was a extremely large sightseeing industry, based on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated violence 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 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, both of which have table games, one armed bandits 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 have slot machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there is a total of 2 horse racing tracks in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd municipality) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Since the market has contracted by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and conflict that has come to pass, it is not well-known how healthy the sightseeing business which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the near future. How many of them will survive until conditions improve is basically not known.