On May 19th 2015, it was reported that Zimbabwe has stopped giving out betting licenses in the southern African nation to limit the surge of gambling on sports and lotteries.

According to reports, Ziyambi Ziyambi, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs told Bloomberg that betting needs to be under control, that people are betting everywhere,  and that there are too many operators offering services.

The government of Zimbabwe estimates that unemployment is at 11%, but Labour Economic and Development Institute Research of Zimbabwe; Prosper Chitambara said that out of the 14 million population about 90% are either unemployed or underemployed.

In three months, up until March about 1000 jobs were eliminated at 76 companies and last year 7000 people lost their jobs, according to the country’s Retrenchment Board.

Other factors in the country have boosted the level of unemployment and this has driven some of the people towards gambling for economic reasons, while still others simply gamble for entertainment. The most popular betting metric in the country is soccer.

Zimbabweans are passionate about their national football team, although they have never qualified for the World Cup finals, and did not qualify for their first African Nations Cup until 2004.