[ English ]

The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is something in some dispute. As information from this nation, out in the very remote central section of Central Asia, tends to be arduous to achieve, this might not be too difficult to believe. Regardless if there are two or three authorized gambling halls is the item at issue, perhaps not quite the most earth-shaking slice of info that we don’t have.

What certainly is correct, as it is of most of the old Soviet states, and absolutely true of those in Asia, is that there will be a great many more not allowed and bootleg market casinos. The adjustment to legalized betting did not drive all the aforestated casinos to come away from the dark and become legitimate. So, the battle over the total amount of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls is a small one at most: how many accredited gambling dens is the item we are trying to answer here.

We know that in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (an amazingly unique name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and slot machine games. We will also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The pair of these offer 26 slot machine games and 11 gaming tables, split amongst roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and layout of these 2 Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it may be even more astonishing to find that both are at the same location. This appears most unlikely, so we can no doubt conclude that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the approved ones, is limited to two casinos, 1 of them having adjusted their title a short while ago.

The state, in common with practically all of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a accelerated change to commercialism. The Wild East, you could say, to reference the lawless ways of the Wild West an aeon and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are actually worth visiting, therefore, as a bit of anthropological research, to see chips being gambled as a form of civil one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in 19th century u.s.a..