Ghana Casinos

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

The list of Ghana's casinos is quite short: not a surprise for a poor African country. Actually, by the standards of Africa, Ghana isn't actually all that poor. It was the first African country to shake off colonialism in 1957, led by Kwame Nkrumah. The next 30 or so years were the usual struggle against the economic incompetence of the various rulers, including the almost traditional military coup. Things finally got sorted out in the 1990's, and the economy is now growing again, giving the inhabitants roughly twice the income per head that is usual in Africa.

Still, that level of income does not support a thriving gaming industry, so as we say, the list of Ghana's casinos is still quite short.

In fact, there are four in the entire country.

List of Ghana's Casinos:

Accra: Golden Tulip Hotel & Royal Casino
La Palm: Atlantic Casino and Royal Beach Hotel

Kumasi: City Hotel & Ashanti Casino
Tema: Merdian Hotel & Club Vegas

All these casinos have both slot machines and gaming tables. For the latter two, the provincial ones, blackjack and roulette, while the ones in the capital, Accra, also have poker tables.

While there are both gold mining and timber sales as industries in Ghana, most of the population and most of the economy is based on subsistence (or peasant) agriculture. This is one reason why the list of Ghana's casinos is so short. Another is that while there is a tourist industry, it is aimed at African-Americans coming to see their roots, looking at the slave forts, and so on along the coast. This really isn't a market that is known to gamble very much.

In fact, for much of the area's history there have really only been two exports: slaves (The Ashanti Kingdom was a prime source for the Arab slavers long before whites reached the area), and gold: indeed, the country still boasts one of the largest mines and gold companies in the world, again named after the ancient kingdom, Ashanti.

Gambling and casinos have traditionally done very well in mining areas, but this is changing as the business becomes more capital intensive: no longer are there armies of well-paid miners tearing at a hillside. Now it is very few people and large numbers of very expensive machines. Machines, as you may have noted, do not gamble.

So, there are the reasons why the list of Ghana's casinos is so short. A poor country, based on agriculture, the tourist industry is not oriented to a market that is likely to gamble, and there are very few local workers who make enough to gamble.