[ English ]

The confirmed number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is something in question. As details from this state, out in the very most central area of Central Asia, often is arduous to achieve, this may not be all that difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or three approved gambling halls is the element at issue, perhaps not quite the most earth-shaking bit of information that we do not have.

What certainly is credible, as it is of the lion’s share of the ex-USSR states, and definitely truthful of those located in Asia, is that there no doubt will be a good many more illegal and clandestine gambling dens. The adjustment to authorized betting did not encourage all the underground gambling dens to come away from the dark into the light. So, the controversy over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a tiny one at best: how many approved casinos is the thing we are attempting to resolve here.

We understand that in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a marvelously original name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and one armed bandits. We will additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 slots and 11 gaming tables, divided between roulette, twenty-one, and poker. Given the amazing similarity in the size and layout of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it might be even more surprising to determine that they share an address. This appears most unlikely, so we can perhaps state that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the accredited ones, ends at two members, one of them having changed their title a short while ago.

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

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are certainly worth checking out, therefore, as a bit of anthropological analysis, to see chips being wagered as a form of communal one-upmanship, the absolute consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century u.s.a..