[ English ]

The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is a fact in a little doubt. As details from this country, out in the very most central area of Central Asia, can be difficult to get, this may not be too astonishing. Whether there are 2 or 3 authorized gambling halls is the item at issue, maybe not really the most earth-shaking bit of information that we do not have.

What no doubt will be true, as it is of the lion’s share of the old Russian nations, and certainly truthful of those located in Asia, is that there will be a good many more not allowed and bootleg market gambling dens. The adjustment to acceptable gambling didn’t encourage all the aforestated gambling halls to come away from the dark into the light. So, the battle over the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a small one at most: how many legal ones is the thing we’re trying to answer here.

We understand that in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a spectacularly unique name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slots. We will also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these offer 26 slots and 11 gaming tables, split between roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the amazing similarity in the square footage and layout of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more surprising to see that both are at the same location. This appears most strange, so we can no doubt conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the accredited ones, stops at two members, 1 of them having adjusted their title not long ago.

The state, in common with nearly all of the ex-USSR, has experienced something of a rapid change to free market. The Wild East, you might say, to refer to the anarchical ways of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are in reality worth checking out, therefore, as a bit of anthropological analysis, to see money being gambled as a form of civil one-upmanship, the absolute consumption that Thorstein Veblen wrote about in 19th century u.s..