[ English ]

The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a risk at the moment, so you could think that there might be very little desire for visiting Zimbabwe’s casinos. In fact, it appears to be working the opposite way around, with the awful market circumstances creating a larger eagerness to bet, to try and discover a fast win, a way out of the situation.

For nearly all of the people living on the meager local money, there are two dominant styles of wagering, the national lotto and Zimbet. Just as with practically everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lottery where the probabilities of profiting are extremely small, but then the winnings are also extremely high. It’s been said by financial experts who study the situation that most do not purchase a ticket with a real assumption of winning. Zimbet is built on one of the local or the UK football divisions and involves predicting the results of future games.

Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, on the other foot, pamper the considerably rich of the society and tourists. Until recently, there was a extremely large sightseeing business, centered on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and connected violence have cut into this trade.

Among 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 gambling hall, which has only slot machines. The Zambesi Valley Hotel and Entertainment Center in Kariba also has only slots. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, the two of which offer gaming tables, one armed bandits and video machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which offer slot machines and table games.

In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the above talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a pools system), there are also 2 horse racing tracks in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the 2nd metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.

Since the market has diminished by more than forty percent in recent years and with the associated deprivation and bloodshed that has resulted, it isn’t known how well the tourist business which supports Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will carry through till things get better is basically not known.