Zimbabwe: Gambling addiction takes hold in Harare

Gambling fever is gripping Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, amid skyrocketing hyperinflation - breaking up families and attracting crime, social planners say.
Slot machines, casinos and gaming houses are springing up across Harare, in ghettos and elegant five star hotels alike, luring Hara re’s young and old to make one more roll of the dice.
In the cottage of a Waterfalls home, about eight punters gamble “makasi” (crazy eight.)
One of the regulars at this game, John, has just pawned his wife’s wedding ring to pay for his gambling debts after being denied “sign” (a lifeline). He has already put his jacket “pastikeni” (as a bet). And if he loses?
“I will offer my shoes,” he says.
Social workers are alarmed at the rising number of gambling addicts in the capital - not only bored unemployed youths, but also white-collar professionals, bitten by a bug that pushes them to one more spin of the wheel - and personal calamity.
“Gambling drives many people into crime,” says Jessy Munyaka, a social worker. “Many start stealing money or valuables so that they can raise gambling money.”
An official at the Exhibition Park, a casino located at the Harare Agricultural Show grounds, says up to 50 percent of people who patronise this place could be addicted.
“There is nothing we can do,” he said when asked about compulsive gamblers. “Its like a drug for them. We can’t kick them out.”
Betting is by no means an unknown phenomenon in a country where ghetto street corners are littered with men playing makasi. A man was stabbed to death recently in Mbare while playing the game.
Desperate people see gambling as the only way to escape poverty. For others, it marks a new form of social vice away from the traditional scourge of alcoholism and prostitution.
According to Munyaka, compulsive gamblers patronising posh venues, such as the Rainbow Towers, tend to be intelligent, professionally successful, driven to gambling by an inability to relax, given the hectic lifestyles they live.
They can draw an average salary of Z$5 million a month to fund their addiction, she said. Others - like John - do not fare so well, turning to social welfare when family life is in tatters and they have run into major problems.
An official at the Exhibition Park casino said a quarter of the clients played “one-arm bandits” - spending hours feeding coins into the machines and hoping for the jackpot.
But far from this affluent slot machine, John told The Zimbabwean he had squandered a small fortune playing makasi in Waterfalls. He told of his terrible guilt at not being able to stop regularly pawning his wife’s clothes, and jewellery - including, finally, the wedding ring that he pawned today - to finance his habit.

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