[ English ]

The complete number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is something in some dispute. As data from this state, out in the very remote central area of Central Asia, can be arduous to receive, this might not be all that bizarre. Whether there are 2 or three accredited gambling dens is the thing at issue, maybe not in fact the most all-important piece of information that we don’t have.

What no doubt will be accurate, as it is of many of the ex-Soviet nations, and definitely correct of those located in Asia, is that there will be a great many more not allowed and clandestine gambling dens. The adjustment to approved gaming didn’t energize all the former places to come from the dark into the light. So, the clash over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a small one at most: how many approved ones is the item we’re seeking to answer here.

We understand that located in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a marvelously original title, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and one armed bandits. We can also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these offer 26 slot machines and 11 table games, separated amongst roulette, twenty-one, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the size and setup of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it may be even more astonishing to determine that they are at the same location. This appears most confounding, so we can perhaps conclude that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the authorized ones, ends at 2 members, one of them having changed their title recently.

The state, in common with nearly all of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a rapid conversion to capitalism. The Wild East, you might say, to refer to the anarchical circumstances of the Wild West an aeon and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in reality worth visiting, therefore, as a piece of social research, to see money being gambled as a type of social one-upmanship, the apparent consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century u.s..