[ English ]

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is a fact in a little doubt. As info from this state, out in the very most interior part of Central Asia, tends to be hard to receive, this may not be all that difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or 3 accredited casinos is the element at issue, maybe not quite the most earth-shattering bit of data that we don’t have.

What will be true, as it is of the lion’s share of the old Soviet nations, and absolutely truthful of those in Asia, is that there certainly is a good many more not allowed and clandestine gambling dens. The switch to legalized gambling didn’t drive all the former places to come from the dark and become legitimate. So, the debate regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls is a minor one at best: how many accredited ones is the element we’re seeking to reconcile here.

We are aware that located in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (an amazingly original name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slots. We will additionally find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Each of these offer 26 one armed bandits and 11 table games, split amidst roulette, chemin de fer, and poker. Given the amazing likeness in the square footage and floor plan of these 2 Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more astonishing to find that the casinos are at the same location. This appears most astonishing, so we can no doubt state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the approved ones, ends at 2 members, one of them having altered their name just a while ago.

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

Kyrgyzstan’s casinos are in fact worth checking out, therefore, as a bit of social research, to see chips being gambled as a type of social one-upmanship, the absolute consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century u.s.a..