[ English ]

The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is a fact in some dispute. As data from this state, out in the very remote interior part of Central Asia, often is difficult to acquire, this might not be too surprising. Whether there are two or 3 legal casinos is the item at issue, perhaps not in reality the most all-important bit of info that we do not have.

What certainly is credible, as it is of the majority of the old USSR nations, and certainly truthful of those in Asia, is that there will be a good many more illegal and backdoor gambling dens. The switch to acceptable betting didn’t energize all the aforestated places to come away from the dark and become legitimate. So, the battle over the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a minor one at most: how many accredited ones is the element we are seeking to reconcile here.

We are aware that located in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (an amazingly unique name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slot machines. We will additionally find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these offer 26 slots and 11 gaming tables, divided amongst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the square footage and setup of these two Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more astonishing to determine that they share an address. This seems most difficult to believe, so we can no doubt state that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the legal ones, is limited to two members, one of them having altered their name a short while ago.

The state, in common with almost all of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a fast conversion to commercialism. The Wild East, you might say, to allude to the lawless ways of the Wild West a century and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are in fact worth checking out, therefore, as a piece of social research, to see dollars being wagered as a form of social one-upmanship, the aristocratic consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century u.s.a..