The prospect of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the current time, so you might imagine that there would be little appetite for patronizing Zimbabwe’s gambling halls. In fact, it appears to be working the other way, with the desperate market conditions leading to a greater ambition to play, to attempt to discover a fast win, a way out of the crisis.

For nearly all of the people surviving on the meager local money, there are 2 popular forms of betting, the state lotto and Zimbet. As with most everywhere else on the planet, there is a national lottery where the odds of profiting are remarkably small, but then the jackpots are also remarkably big. It’s been said by financial experts who look at the idea that the lion’s share do not purchase a card with a real assumption of profiting. Zimbet is based on one of the local or the UK football divisions and involves determining the results of future matches.

Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other shoe, mollycoddle the very rich of the society and vacationers. Up until a short while ago, there was a very substantial sightseeing industry, based on safaris and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic collapse and associated conflict have cut into this market.

Amongst Zimbabwe’s casinos, there are 2 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 slot machines. Mutare contains the Monclair Hotel and Casino and the Leopard Rock Hotel and Casino, both of which have table games, one armed bandits and electronic poker machines, and Victoria Falls houses the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, both of which offer gaming machines and tables.

In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling halls and the aforestated mentioned lottery and Zimbet (which is considerably like a pools system), there are also two horse racing complexes in the country: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second city) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.

Given that the market has shrunk by beyond 40 percent in the past few years and with the connected poverty and violence that has come about, it is not well-known how well the vacationing business which supports Zimbabwe’s gambling halls will do in the next few years. How many of the casinos will survive till conditions improve is basically not known.