[ English ]

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is a fact in some dispute. As details from this country, out in the very remote central section of Central Asia, tends to be arduous to achieve, this might not be all that difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or three legal gambling dens is the thing at issue, perhaps not really the most all-important article of info that we don’t have.

What certainly is true, as it is of the lion’s share of the ex-USSR states, and certainly accurate of those located in Asia, is that there will be a good many more not legal and clandestine casinos. The change to authorized gaming did not energize all the underground gambling halls to come away from the illegal into the legal. So, the clash regarding the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at most: how many accredited ones is the element we’re trying to resolve here.

We are aware that located in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (an amazingly unique title, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slots. We can additionally find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these have 26 slot machine games and 11 gaming tables, divided amidst roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the amazing likeness in the sq.ft. and layout of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it may be even more surprising to find that the casinos share an location. This appears most confounding, so we can clearly determine that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the accredited ones, stops at two members, one of them having adjusted their title a short time ago.

The nation, in common with most of the ex-USSR, has experienced something of a accelerated adjustment to capitalism. The Wild East, you could say, to refer to the anarchical circumstances of the Wild West a century and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are honestly worth going to, therefore, as a piece of anthropological research, to see dollars being wagered as a type of collective one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century America.