The act of living in Zimbabwe is somewhat of a gamble at the moment, so you could imagine that there would be little appetite for visiting Zimbabwe’s gambling dens. In reality, it appears to be operating the opposite way around, with the awful market circumstances leading to a bigger eagerness to gamble, to attempt to locate a quick win, a way out of the difficulty.

For nearly all of the citizens living on the tiny local wages, there are 2 dominant forms of gambling, the national lottery and Zimbet. As with practically everywhere else on the globe, there is a national lotto where the odds of hitting are surprisingly tiny, but then the prizes are also remarkably large. It’s been said by market analysts who understand the situation that most do not buy a ticket with a real belief of hitting. Zimbet is based on either the national or the English soccer divisions and involves predicting the outcomes of future games.

Zimbabwe’s casinos, on the other hand, cater to the astonishingly rich of the nation and vacationers. Until a short time ago, there was a very large tourist industry, based on nature trips and visits to Victoria Falls. The economic anxiety and connected conflict have cut into this trade.

Amongst Zimbabwe’s gambling dens, 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 gambling den, 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, the two of which contain gaming tables, one armed bandits and video machines, and Victoria Falls has the Elephant Hills Hotel and Casino and the Makasa Sun Hotel and Casino, the pair of which have gaming machines and blackjack, roulette, and craps tables.

In addition to Zimbabwe’s gambling dens and the previously talked about lottery and Zimbet (which is very like a parimutuel betting system), there are a total of two horse racing complexes in the nation: the Matabeleland Turf Club in Bulawayo (the second metropolis) and the Borrowdale Park in Harare.

Given that the market has shrunk by more than forty percent in the past few years and with the associated deprivation and bloodshed that has come about, it is not well-known how well the vacationing business which funds Zimbabwe’s casinos will do in the in the years to come. How many of them will survive till conditions get better is basically not known.