[ English ]

The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is a fact in question. As data from this country, out in the very most interior part of Central Asia, can be hard to receive, this may not be all that bizarre. Whether there are two or 3 legal casinos is the thing at issue, perhaps not really the most all-important article of info that we do not have.

What certainly is correct, as it is of many of the old Soviet nations, and certainly truthful of those located in Asia, is that there will be a lot more not approved and clandestine casinos. The adjustment to authorized gambling didn’t drive all the underground gambling halls to come from the dark and become legitimate. So, the debate regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls is a tiny one at most: how many legal casinos is the element we’re trying to reconcile here.

We are aware that located in Bishkek, the capital municipality, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original title, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slot machines. We can also find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 slot machine games and 11 table games, separated between roulette, blackjack, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the sq.ft. and setup of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it may be even more bizarre to determine that both are at the same address. This appears most strange, so we can no doubt state that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the approved ones, is limited to 2 members, 1 of them having changed their name not long ago.

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

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in fact worth checking out, therefore, as a bit of anthropological research, to see dollars being wagered as a form of communal one-upmanship, the aristocratic consumption that Thorstein Veblen talked about in 19th century America.