The entire process of living in Zimbabwe is something of a gamble at the moment, so you may envision that there would be little affinity for patronizing Zimbabwe’s casinos. In fact, it appears to be working the other way around, with the desperate market conditions leading to a higher ambition to bet, to try and find a quick win, a way out of the crisis.
For almost all of the people surviving on the tiny local earnings, there are two dominant styles of wagering, the state lottery and Zimbet. Just as with most everywhere else on the globe, there is a state lotto where the odds of hitting are surprisingly tiny, but then the winnings are also unbelievably large. It’s been said by financial experts who study the situation that many don’t purchase a card with a real belief of winning. Zimbet is centered on either the local or the British football leagues and involves predicting the results of future games.
Zimbabwe’s gambling halls, on the other hand, cater to the considerably rich of the country and travelers. Up till recently, there was a considerably large vacationing industry, founded on safaris and trips to Victoria Falls. The economic woes and associated conflict have cut into this market.
Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are two in the capital, Harare, the Carribea Bay Resort and Casino, which has 5 gaming tables and slots, and the Plumtree gambling hall, which has just the slot machine games. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slot machines. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the pair of which offer 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, the two of which has video poker machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.
In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforementioned talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of two horse racing complexes in the state: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.
Given that the market has shrunk by more than 40 percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and violence that has come about, it is not known how well the vacationing industry which is the foundation for Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the in the years to come. How many of the casinos will carry through until things improve is simply unknown.