"BETTING is something worse than what meets the eye and is the same as drugs,” said soccer and lotto betting fanatic and addict, Getwell Ndlovu, from Luveve in Bulawayo.
Ndlovu regrets the day he started gambling as it has resulted in him living on the streets after squandering his earnings and a neighbours’ money.
He has failed to pay rentals, forcing his landlord to evict him.
He is also failing to reimburse his neighbour the money he used in one of his gambling escapades.
Like drug and substance abuse, betting is reported to have destroyed many people’s lives and scuttled their progress.
Imagining winning a huge amount of money without much labour makes someone feel so near yet so far from being wealthy.
In an interview, during a programme organised by the National Aids Council and its contracted partner Scripture Union in Bulawayo, Ndlovu (34) told Southern Eye that his life has seriously crumbled due to betting.
“I started staying on the streets in March this year. The reason was that I was working and took the pay to do betting, but I lost,” he said.
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“After that, I was given money by my neighbours who asked me to pay some bills and buy some goods for them.
"Instead I took that money and tried to spin it through betting. Now to go back, I thought of what story I would tell them. So the best plan was to hide in the streets. Since March, I have been living on the street."
Ndlovu said in a day, he gets around US$9 through recycling, in which he picks plastics and cans, but whatever amount he gets, he takes it straight to betting.
“When I calculated, I realised that I get US$300 per month, but all of it I spend it in betting, which I regularly lose,” he said.
“We appeal for rehabilitation of betting addicts because that thing is worse than smoking cigarettes. Even many of my colleagues are living on the streets because of betting.”
He added: “I am not yet married and my parents last knew me while I was working at a school, so they do not know where I am.
“My parents are in Luveve. Since I started betting, I have never met them and I am afraid to meet my neighbours and the parents.
“My appeal is just to get rehabilitation so that I stop betting. I started betting when I had started staying alone.”
Ndlovu’s remarks came at a time when Victory Fellowship Church Bulawayo City branch is currently feeding over 100 homeless and vulnerable people in a programme that it started since 1994 so as to give a smile and hope to the souls that are desperately in need.
Ndlovu is also one of the regular beneficiaries of the programme.
The programme at the church started in 1994 and had a break during the COVID-19 period.
“Every Wednesday and Friday, the church conducts hot meals feeding for the 100 people and volunteers are the ones who cook and serve the food,” said lead pastor of City Assembly of Victory Fellowship Church, Morgan Mathema.
“On Sundays, we ask members to spare their food and bring it to the church and also some well-wishers bring food and church members would bring donations for the feeding programme.”
Mathema said the group of people being fed comprised homeless people, from Ngozi Mine, Killarney squatter camp and children living on the streets.
“Our founding pastor is called Apostle Ken Haskins and was founded in 1983 in Bulawayo. The soup kitchen ministry started in 1994, it began as loaves and fishes,” he said.
“We have to date 54 rural branches. We have so many rural churches. We feed between 70 to 120 people and on Friday the numbers swell now.
“From time to time we have various partners who assist with food. The programme is not run in other branches.”
Several other beneficiaries had varying stories, some of them having been pushed to the streets by failure to do away with drugs when their families pushed them to stop.
Those who are children have been pushed away from home by step mothers and other family related abuses which they could not stand.
Victory Church, NAC and Scripture Union are collaborating in efforts to bring a smile to these people and if possible to reunite them with families.
Latest media reports state that Zimbabwe has of late experienced a surge in gambling addiction, which is devastating youth, with betting establishments becoming hubs for young people seeking quick fixes to economic woes.
