The actual number of Kyrgyzstan casinos is something in some dispute. As details from this country, out in the very remote interior section of Central Asia, can be difficult to acquire, this may not be all that bizarre. Whether there are two or 3 accredited gambling halls is the element at issue, perhaps not quite the most earth-shattering piece of data that we do not have.
What certainly is accurate, as it is of many of the ex-Soviet states, and certainly true of those located in Asia, is that there no doubt will be many more illegal and clandestine casinos. The adjustment to authorized betting did not encourage all the illegal gambling dens to come from the dark into the light. So, the battle regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a tiny one at most: how many legal ones is the element we’re attempting to resolve here.
We are aware that in Bishkek, the capital municipality, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a stunningly original name, don’t you think?), which has both table games and slot machines. We will additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 slot machines and 11 table games, split between roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the square footage and setup of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling dens, it might be even more astonishing to determine that the casinos are at the same location. This appears most strange, so we can clearly state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls, at least the approved ones, stops at two members, one of them having adjusted their name a short time ago.
The nation, in common with nearly all of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a rapid conversion to capitalism. The Wild East, you might say, to reference the anarchical conditions of the Wild West a century and a half ago.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are in reality worth checking out, therefore, as a piece of social analysis, to see chips being played as a type of communal one-upmanship, the aristocratic consumption that Thorstein Veblen spoke about in nineteeth century America.