[ English ]

The actual number of Kyrgyzstan gambling halls is something in a little doubt. As details from this state, out in the very remote interior part of Central Asia, can be awkward to receive, this might not be too difficult to believe. Whether there are 2 or three authorized gambling dens is the thing at issue, perhaps not in reality the most earth-shaking article of data that we do not have.

What will be correct, as it is of the majority of the ex-USSR states, and certainly accurate of those located in Asia, is that there will be a lot more not approved and bootleg market gambling halls. The change to approved gambling didn’t empower all the former places to come out of the dark into the light. So, the debate regarding the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls is a tiny one at most: how many authorized gambling dens is the thing we’re attempting to reconcile here.

We are aware 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 slot machine games. We can additionally see both the Casino Bishkek and the Xanadu Casino. The two of these have 26 one armed bandits and 11 table games, split amongst roulette, 21, and poker. Given the remarkable likeness in the square footage and layout of these two Kyrgyzstan casinos, it may be even more bizarre to determine that both are at the same address. This seems most astonishing, so we can clearly determine that the number of Kyrgyzstan’s gambling dens, at least the authorized ones, ends at two casinos, one of them having changed their title not long ago.

The state, in common with the majority of the ex-USSR, has undergone something of a rapid adjustment to free-enterprise economy. The Wild East, you may say, to allude to the anarchical circumstances of the Wild West a century and a half ago.

Kyrgyzstan’s gambling halls are almost certainly worth visiting, therefore, as a piece of social research, to see dollars being gambled as a type of social one-upmanship, the celebrated consumption that Thorstein Veblen talked about in 19th century America.