The complete number of Kyrgyzstan gambling dens is something in some dispute. As information from this state, out in the very most interior area of Central Asia, often is difficult to receive, this might not be too difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or 3 legal casinos is the item at issue, maybe not really the most earth-shaking bit of information that we don’t have.
What no doubt will be accurate, as it is of the lion’s share of the old Soviet states, and absolutely correct of those located in Asia, is that there will be a great many more not allowed and backdoor gambling halls. The switch to approved gaming did not drive all the underground locations to come away from the dark and become legitimate. So, the clash over the total number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens is a small one at most: how many approved ones is the element we’re attempting to reconcile here.
We know that located in Bishkek, the capital metropolis, there is the Casino Las Vegas (a remarkably original name, don’t you think?), which has both gaming tables and video slots. We can also see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. Both of these have 26 one armed bandits and 11 table games, separated between roulette, vingt-et-un, and poker. Given the amazing likeness in the square footage and layout of these two Kyrgyzstan gambling halls, it may be even more surprising to see that both are at the same location. This appears most unlikely, so we can no doubt state that the list of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the accredited ones, stops at 2 casinos, one of them having changed their title a short while ago.
The country, in common with almost all of the ex-Soviet Union, has undergone something of a accelerated conversion to commercialism. The Wild East, you may say, to refer to the chaotic ways of the Wild West an aeon and a half back.
Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are certainly worth visiting, therefore, as a bit of social analysis, to see chips being played as a type of collective one-upmanship, the conspicuous consumption that Thorstein Veblen talked about in 19th century America.