[ English ]

The conclusive number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is a fact in question. As details from this state, out in the very remote interior area of Central Asia, can be difficult to acquire, this may not be too bizarre. Whether there are 2 or 3 accredited casinos is the element at issue, perhaps not really the most earth-shaking slice of info that we don’t have.

What will be correct, as it is of the majority of the ex-USSR nations, and definitely true of those in Asia, is that there no doubt will be a lot more not allowed and clandestine gambling dens. The adjustment to legalized gambling didn’t drive all the illegal places to come from the dark into the light. So, the battle over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos is a tiny one at most: how many accredited ones is the element we are attempting to resolve here.

We know that located in Bishkek, the capital city, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a stunningly unique title, don’t you think?), which has both table games and one armed bandits. We will additionally find both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 one armed bandits and 11 gaming tables, separated amongst roulette, twenty-one, and poker. Given the remarkable similarity in the square footage and layout of these two Kyrgyzstan casinos, it might be even more surprising to see that the casinos share an address. This seems most strange, so we can perhaps state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s casinos, at least the approved ones, is limited to 2 members, 1 of them having adjusted their title recently.

The nation, in common with the majority of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a accelerated change to commercialism. The Wild East, you may say, to refer to the anarchical conditions of the Wild West a century and a half back.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens are certainly worth checking out, therefore, as a bit of anthropological research, to see chips being gambled as a type of social one-upmanship, the apparent consumption that Thorstein Veblen talked about in nineteeth century usa.